While thinking about artist statements this month, I decided to go through statements from some of my favourite artists as well as a few who’s work I enjoy looking at on instagram. To my surprise some artists had only biographies (in some cases they did double up as artist statements) on their websites. Here is a list of artists who’s statements I looked for online:

Artists with bios, but not a definitive statement online: Kate Malone, Laurie Steer, Alfred Lowe, Candice Methe, Bede Clarke, Vipoo Srivilasa, Lawson Oyekan

Artists with artist statements available or a bio that could work as a statement: Eva Lys Champagne, Austin Cordiet, Alberto Bustos, Meaghan Gates, Anne Laure Cano, Sasha Court, John Flores

The artist statements that piqued my interest

Austin Cordiet

My studio practice is an ongoing tactile conversation between soft amorphous forms and rigid linear components. Rejecting the binary conception that an object is either functional or sculptural I largely create dysfunctional vessels and functional sculptures. As a child I would draw with my father, an architect. I was fascinated by the way he built with lines, they exceeded their boundaries yet were contained by the image they formed, loose but intentional. My visual horizon was flooded by blueprints, modern design, and furniture. As I began my own art making practice, my drawings developed Into the exploration of three dimensional fabrication. Through the material of clay lines translated into coils, and those coils into sculpture. my lines find edges and shapes form volume. 

Originally I collected inspiration from mid-century modern furniture, scaffolding and the Deconstructivist architecture movement. The more I create, the more I collect inspiration from everything around me. I draw constantly, often working in multiple sketchbooks at a time. I cut out and collect images from anything I can get my hands on, magazines, books, postcards, even grocery store ads. These clippings manifest themselves into books of collaged inspiration. Currently, these collages intermix with my daily visual experiences and are re-contextualized through the lens of design, into nonrepresentational sculpture and furniture. As I progress in my career I will continue to pursue large scale works of sculpture and press into the design world with my functional ceramic furniture.

John Flores

John Flores is a contemporary ceramic artist who lives and works in Yucca Valley, California. He acquired a BFA with a focus in Ceramics at California State University Fullerton in 2019. John’s work revolves around a notion of sacredness that he associates with the natural world, an interconnectedness between all living things. Those notions embody the visual stylization of Flores’ work, with sculptures that often depict botanical forms combined with humanistic elements. Using his imagery as a foundation, John will weave in everyday life experiences, turning every sculpture into a narrative. Telling stories of shared experiences that often deal with changes and transitions in life.

Sasha Court

The intention of my work is to explore the tension of opposites that exist within us and around us. My work aims to visually present the duality of what it means to be human, to be alive.  I intend to capture the awe at once with the ache, the beauty at once with the crushing sadness of inevitable endings.  The idea that love is pain and there is a beautiful ache that comes with loving and living in our humanness. 

I also like to explore themes of seduction and beauty – both the seen and unseen.  My work aims to help me get closer to understanding the importance of beauty in our lives.  I am devoted to the impossible quest of answering the question – what is beautiful and why does it matter?

Anne Laure Cano

In my recent work, I have been looking at the themes of displacement and loss of continuity with one’s individual and collective past.  I am particularly interested in untold stories, our invisible internal negotiations with emotions and personal history that make us who we are. In response to being interested in the invisible and untold, I am fascinated by objects or any tangible marks that bear the traces of existence and define our human identities. I am drawn into the beauty of the details, the remnants of something gone, anything that can be used to understand the silence and its many meanings.

My work tries to give form to something that was never tangible in the first place. I needed a material that would allow me to create a variety of forms in order to give a shape to emotions.  Ceramics based materials are the materials of choice for me as their fluidity and flexibility give me the freedom I need.

My approach to making is experimental, I love bric-à-brac, an organised chaos, I surround myself with a selection of objects, pieces I make and break, found objects, tin cans, sand, metal. I pick them up, mix them with wet clay, cement, plaster, metal and organic components until strange objects emerge looking more like that they have been found than made.

Having previously trained within photography and film, I draw on time, space and narrative as key elements that feed into the act of making. These elements combined with my research and a thinking through making process work together until I reach a body of work that carries an intriguing narrative and questions our emotional experiences.

Meaghan Gates

I make abstracted biological forms that are intended to be empathized with through their anthropomorphic qualities of gesture and color, in order to hypothesize the potential outcomes of change. 

Part 1 of the Assignment:

My work is inspired by nature. My journey started with being focused on the ocean as my inspiration, partly as the daughter of a master mariner and partly through my dive trips providing fuel. As my work has developed over the course of the last year and half, I see my interest has developed further from working on narrative based pieces to more pattern-driven/ornamental pieces with nature still being the back bone of the piece. This comes from an inherent love for patterns and architecture. My work seeks to explore our relationship with the planet and seek solace in the beauty of the pieces that were once inspired by now damaged ecosystems. Through the mostly non functional biomorphic forms that I create I highlight spaces, creatures, ecosystems that we often tend to forget about.

Part 2 of the Assignment:

Organic but rigid. Symmetrical yet chaotic. Dynamic but structured. Big but detailed.
My work is a mixture of these opposites. Taking inspiration from natures bounty, and using geometry, structure and architectural elements my work is an amalgamation of these ideas. While nature remains basis of my work, my tone has moved from just highlighting it to now celebrating the hopeful qualities of nature. With my sculptural pieces I aim to shine light on the strength and resilience that nature possesses.. the ability to be alive and thrive. My pieces seek to showcase the inherent beauty of nature through it’s scale and intricacies. The largeness of the piece creates a sense of wonder while the details invite the viewer to come take a closer look, to interact and think of their place in the bigger scheme of things.