“My work explores questions of space, public policies, inclusion,
exclusion, and privilege. From urban, to suburban, to rural, I explore
the social dynamics of people and the spaces they inhabit. Specifically,
I find inspiration through public spaces designed for specific use, and
abandoned properties that are both created by these communities and
then collectively discarded.”
Registrations are open for the 2016/2017 Winter Cycle of THE
HEAD IN CLAY! There are 30 spaces available and the school will stay
open through February 28, 2017 or until enrollment is full.The course
will re-open in summer 2017.
In this course you will learn key techniques to develop and finish a
clay head suitable for firing. We will cover sourcing reference
materials, the best tools, hollow construction techniques and how to
develop and finish features for a strong composition.
Of Giants Olivia Rozema MFA Graduating Exhibition
November 12 – 20
Artist Statement
Of Giants
is an exhibition of large scale ceramic sculptures of human body parts.
Based upon a series of preparatory drawings completed at the McMaster
Medical Anatomy Lab, each sculpture represents of an individual piece of
the body. With these sculptures I have peeled away layers of skin and
biological purpose to reveal a formal sculptural object.
I
believe we are encouraged to see our bodies as either meat or machine;
these sculptures subvert this point of view to encourage a relationship
with our internal anatomy that is more celebratory than it is medical or
grotesque. Despite their beginnings as human anatomic specimens,
as a result of their scale and surface, these sculptures seem to be the
remnants of a gargantuan pre-historic creature. They have an excess in size that places them outside the realm of human,
but in truth our insides are the strange giants that are seemingly
strewn across the gallery floor. The final frontier is beneath our skin,
and although they often remain unseen, I believe our insides are made
up of a complex network of sculptures that each person carries with them
as they move through their lives.
Emulating the
format of catalogued specimens each sculpture is titled with a number.
These titles are a reference to the organization system of a medical
lab, but also play with mathematics, as the number refers to how tall a
person would be if these fragments were a true part of a body. For example, the sculpture which represents all the bones in a human left foot is titled 49 10/12.
This means that a person with a giant’s foot of this scale would be
about 49’ 10” tall. These giant-scale human body parts re-mythologize
and monumentalize our hidden and mysterious insides giving viewers the
opportunity and license to imagine their own body parts as complex and
compelling formal objects.
The sculptures embody a type of self-knowledge. Their forms suggest something we feel we should recognize
but cannot place. They have an uncanny resemblance to the real,
however, they are skewed. They are strange human parts made stranger,
with my hand re-creating and re-imagining their forms. These forms,
removed from their natural bodily context and enlarged, reside in the
space between the familiar and the unfamiliar, dramatizing the
disconnect of our relationship between our insides and outsides. I
over-analysed, mimicking the shapes, patterns, and textures that
incited my fascination. I removed these bones, sinew, and organs from
their natural contexts and transformed them through sculpture, so that
my captivation with the shapes of our insides can be shared with the
audience.
www.mackenzieartgallery.ca/engage/exhibitions/of-giants-olivia-rozema-mfa-graduating-exhibition
“Delicate Dependencies” is an exploration of
these ideas shown through plants and animals native to the western United
States. These creatures exist in habitats stressed or impacted by human
activity, leading them to an unclear future. They inhabit a space
where the relationship between humans, and the plants and animals around them,
are intricately and physically bound together, dependent on each other for
their long-term viability. Sculpted from the silken white earth of porcelain, I
see these delicate figures as containing power, as modern talismans and
precious telling objects. They see a heightened vision of human
influence in the natural world and are here to remind us of our current
trajectory and the delicate dependencies we all share.
Website: crystalmorey.com
