Interviews

Francoise LeClerc in Sentience. Interview with Suzanne M Long, curator. 
Sentience is showing from September 24th, 2021 to January 9th, 2022.

Artist Statement
I have worked with horses as a figurative subject for several years now. For me, their physical form and transcendent energy will always be compelling, but the more I sit with them, the more they make me think about the passage of time, both in the sense of collective memory and the pace at which we move through our lives.

In this body of work, I’m looking at that tipping point, right at the turn of the 20th century when cars drove horses into obsolescence, but also released them from what were often lives of extreme neglect or hardship. Indeed, I don’t mean to romanticize a period of history that was fraught with innumerable wrongs and tragedies, both for humans and non-humans alike. Rather, I’m intrigued by that moment when humans started moving faster, with less effort, but at the ultimate expense of our planet, and perhaps, our own sanity. We have grown out of scale.

Ariel Bowman in Lumiere. Interview with Suzanne M Long, curator. 
Lumiere has been extended to November 21st, 2020.

Artist Statement
I make sculptures of prehistoric animals that represent the wonder to be found in natural history. I am intrigued by animals that evolved with distinct features, such as unfamiliar tusks, strange elongated limbs, and unusual proportions. I use clay to bring theseextinct creatures back to life, sculpting folds of flesh and filling their bellies with air.

The picturesque aesthetic of the eighteenth century refers to a time when our relationship to nature was being expanded by scientific discoveries, yet separated by the disappearance of wild places. Each scene that I create is a fantasy inspiring curiosity about the unknown animal, while nourishing the imagination of the viewer with intricate details. Mysterious giants wander through palatial ruins, discovering the overgrown remains of monuments to human greatness. Moss and vines cover the fossils of civilization, and show the effects of time in their decay.

My work uses reflective nostalgia to present these extinct animals in the context of human history. The unexpected combination of such contrasting timelines questions reality, and rekindles a childlike fascination with the animal world.

Vince Montague with Utopian Pots. May 21 to July 11, 2021.

Artist Statement
I have wanted to make pots that feel closer to the place where I live and work in Northern CA. Before the revolution in technology, people moved to theWest coast to pursue their dreams “to find themselves” or to build the type of world they wanted to see. “ Back to the Land” wasn’t just a slogan but an actual choice. I feel a great debt to the many artists, designers, architects, composers, farmers, Utopians, iconoclasts and spiritual seekers who have settled out here since the 1950s, to manifest their own ideals of living peacefully and equitably either alone or in communities. That burst of energy surrounds me every day, and my new work strives to be part of that dream.

Jane Grimm in FLOW. May 14 to July 11, 2021.

Artist Statement
Creativity always has been part of my like. I was born into a family of architects and artists.  However, I did not seriously focus on making art until I was in college where one third of my course load was sculpture.  I have been experimenting with materials, styles, and content ever since.  I began by having a jewelry business in NYC in the 60’s making jewelry that could be considered small scale sculptures.  In the 80’s, having tired of running a business, I decided to use clay as my material of choice.  There are few limitations in creating sculptures in clay.  Texture and color and surface treatment options are limitless.  Most of my work is organic, reminiscent of things in nature, the sea, plant life, microscopic forms. Other sculptures are very structural, architectural, focusing on form.   Each piece that I make becomes an inspiration for the next piece.  As I am making one piece, I start questioning how it would look if I just made this one change, or maybe that one change.  What if I change the dimensions, the form, the color, the finish…My artistic journey continues.

Nathan Lynch in FLOW. May 14 to July 11, 2021.

Artist Statement
I make abstract, biomorphic sculptures that are physical presentations of the difference between what we want and what we get. In one series, High, refers to record-setting stocks, housing, global temperatures, and ocean levels.  High is for our deep aspirations and our American pursuit of constant improvement.  The work includes abstract blobjects that appear to slump, sag, burst, drip and ooze off of their platforms presenting a tone like that of a 4-day-old helium balloon - neither all the way up or completely down, hovering in the layered emotions between elation, confusion and disaster.

In recent works I obscure boundaries between facts and fiction by comparing media reports of political events to the allegory of Plato’s Cave, where the division between reality and the representation of reality are confused.  How does misinformation aid and create misdirection? For some news outlets, truth becomes malleable, almost elastic. In these sculptures, titled “Truthiness”, similar forms are represented in different iterations and several materials, questioning any singular truth. 

Ofra Fisher, Surface Tension. Winter 2020.

Artist Statement
My current body of artwork explores the concept of action, motion and tension with the human figure in unfamiliar circumstances. I make sculptures that place the human body in situations that are peculiar and out of the ordinary. Setting the familiar in unfamiliar positions creates imagery of something unique and engaging. I have made several sculptures where parts of the body have contact with boxes, bowls and vessels. Many of the pieces have the figure held or contained within the form. The image of the body interacts with the form of the sculpture as if the figure is manipulating the clay material that it is made of. I explore the idea of having the figure emerge or come forth from the form, evoking a sense of physical movement and force.

Julie Clements, Into the Woods. Fall 2020.

Artist Statement
I am a ceramic artist working out of my home studio "Clay Pigeon Ceramics" in northern California. I began exploring clay art and sculpture during my undergraduate study at Emory University. Post-graduation I continued learning and developing during a year-long internship at Callanwolde Fine Art Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Current themes in my work include explorations into animals, ecology, and science. I also worked as a veterinary technician in zoo and small animal medicine for fifteen years. I hope to convey in my art my intense interest in animals in all their unique forms. I find nature endlessly inspiring and maybe you will too.

Arthur Gonzalez, Into the Woods. Fall 2020.

Dark, somber and foreboding, Arthur Gonzalez's works encourage serious deliberation and reflection on the relationship between personal concerns and world issues. Raw in form, lacking in smoothness and rough in finish, the ceramic sculptures give glimpses of a conversation or a contemplation in progress. Gonzalez's creations of ceramic and found objects reveal visions and feelings that are not polished but ongoing processes of gyrating thoughts and churning emotions that threaten to erupt into reality and consciousness to defy the fantasy of a peaceful experience.

Lisa Reinertson, Borderlands. Fall 2020.

Artist Statement
The inhumanity and militarization of our border policies weighs on our country’s conscience, and grieves my heart. By creating artworks that speak to the dignity and struggle of the personal experience, my intention is to touch our hearts. My hope is to remind us of the human decency that our country has tried to stand for, and to inspire people to think about how we can reclaim the goodness in us as a people.