Andrew Hoeppner: Artist Statement

Monday, May 9, 2011

Artist Statement

What experiences are revealed when human meets the unknown? When dichotomies of the beautiful and unattractive meet what emotions surface?

Through the interactions between the viewer and ceramic form, I explore the boundaries of these opposing ideas. I produce experiences that are at once uncanny and sensual. The work incites the feeling of something being familiar yet foreign, strange yet comfortable, attractive yet repulsive. It stimulates a discovery of what is perceived as beautiful within what may sometimes be unsettling.

My anthropomorphic ceramic sculptures have strong references to the body and skin, which have the ability to be both beautiful and grotesque. The surfaces are smooth and sensual. However other elements such as installation, mixed media, or the form itself, sometimes upset their appeal. My forms are awkward within the intimate relations developed with the audience, or within themselves. In consequence my work evokes a complex response of physical and emotional irritation.

The desire for clay in my work comes from the many underlying references to the human body. At a leather hard stage clay embodies the surface of smooth skin. It also stretches, folds, sags, and the surfaces can be treated to feel and look both hard or soft. The human body offers me a sense of obscurity where fragments are abstracted in transformation. Resulting in raw ambiguous details that arouse contradictory feelings and discomforting situations.

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"Bring Me Your Cup"

As college students we drink vast amounts of alcohol every year usually in a red plastic cup something we can relate to parties, events, birthdays, and graduation. A cup so widely used has bound to make its way around a few places and has witnessed an endless amount of situations in such settings. I am interested in the idea of the cup being a witness to conversation and surroundings of events that would occur in the act of drinking alcohol. The cup being an object unnoticed as a witness has strong resemblances to being a ghost, hence the white cups. As the consumer we are unaware of such a phenomenon and we continue our night as it goes on. Drunken and stupid we might do things we regret the next day or even forget.

"Tres Hombres"

(CCACA 2010 UC Davis; Stoneware, ^04, slips and underglazes) This past semester I swung back into throwing and making functional objects again. I was experimenting with the bottle form mostly and became intrigued by its functional yet sculptural parallel. Combining the two these are the forms I created with some past explorations involved. Their size and figurative characteristics make them seem alive and have a sense of movement or even conversation amongst themselves. And this is why they are brothers; the "Tres Hombres."

"The Struggle"

For finals I had installed this piece in my living room for an entire week. I feel that this was a collaboration of everything I have been exploring the past year and finally brought all my materials and ideas together as one in an installation. I had been alway leaning towards installation art with my ceramic pieces because there is an emotional response i am looking for in my art. Whether it be a feel of something uncanny, a feel of being afraid, a sense of unease, happiness, sexuality, as long as it sturrs up some sort of emotional response. I feel as though creating a space or changing a space creates an environment for the viewer to participate in and helps develop those scenarios and gestures i am looking for in my art. I also wanted the scenario of the apt. to take a role in how the piece functioned, something similar to the basement piece. The same with the rope acting not only as a means of suspension but as a language to entice the feel of struggle with the knots and the entanglement of the form. And having the dangling rope relate to the gravity of the piece itself all does come into play.

"The Struggle"

This is a detailed shot of the form itself. Once again exploring materials and surface treatments beyond traditional glazes obscuring the senses and creating something completely unique and ambiguous. I really enjoy the contrast of the surface treatment of the body being something organic and rough while the drips being something fleshy and scabby. I wanted the form to be able to mimic the intended use of gravity and suspension to create that surreal feeling of it being a living creature.