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My current art work centers around the female figure. The material I utilize most in my exploration of this topic is clay. I find clay to be a tactile, inviting, natural, and provocative element of the earth. My work explores issues such as a woman's social function, role, and expectations placed upon her and how these issues, in turn, coincide and conflict with personal desire. Through sculpture I convey ideas that are difficult to express by other means. I attempt is to capture a feeling or impulse and to explore the many meanings behind what we think we know. Sculpture is an opportunity to communicate ideas that don't fit into any other language. My works examine society, personal desire, physical sensation, emotion, and subconscious thought. The human condition is that of perpetual confusion and discovery. My sculpture is an expression of all the thoughts, fears, judgments, and feelings that constantly drive me. My sculptures change substantially as the point of view changes and as the person viewing it changes over the course of his life. Our feelings and perceptions about people or events depend to a great extent on our relationship to them. It is only by viewing things at different times in our lives that we can fully appreciate and understand them. |
| When I first started making sculpture, I was
striving for pure objective abstraction, forms that did not resemble anything
at all. Over time, I was surprise that I became increasingly drawn to the
figure. The question with which I was then confronted was, "What could I
possibly do that has not been done?" I came to understand that the only new
things I could create were expressions of my own personal self-exploration.
I accepted I could no longer avoid the figure. It kept creeping up, even
in my strongest efforts to refrain from it. Currently, I don't think it is
possible for me to create something that is devoid of human reference. Regardless
of how one tries to avoid it, the fact remains that art does function as
a personal and social commentary. To attempt to take all association and
meaning out of a work is futile. Finally, instead of fighting the presence
of the figure and its meaning, I embraced it. It is my intent to investigate
these ideas further until I reach a sense of personal understanding and
resolution. Future works will challenge scale and alternate materials, in
hopes of achieving a progression in conceptual and technical skill.
~Christina McCleary |
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