Artist Statement

2011-05-09T21:45:00.000-07:00

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.

Andrew Hoeppner

Artist Statement