STATEMENT

Gender is a social construct specifying the socially and culturally prescribed roles that men and women are to follow. The extent of the gap between the sexes varies across civilizations and time, however some of these gender based archetypes have surpassed time and continued to be ubiquitous ideals in the general public’s eye. With the consistently shifting standards it seems that many of the gender inequalities have been shifted into equalities, but in reality humanity still places many biases based solely on ones socially accepted role.

In my ceramic sculptures I am exploring gender roles based on stereotypes set forth continuously by our society, as well as the seemingly changing ideas about today’s acceptable gender roles.  The satirical imagery and outspoken titles make for a harmonious combination of reflection and irony. The mixture of images and titles create an atmosphere were the viewer has to consider their own social roles in contrast to the artwork, while also deciding if there is any truth behind the obvious social critique. Whether or not the viewer agrees with the analysis is a distinction of their own views, and further more can be affected by their own upbringing, social class, gender association, culture, and even their religious beliefs. My ceramic work is not meant to offend people, just merely start a conversation about these stereotypes that surround our everyday life.

I use the potter’s wheel and paper clay as tools to create most of the forms, altering the forms on certain occasions. I choose to work with abstracted figurative forms, which are representative of the male/female body instead of creating the whole figure to signify gender. This allows me to create a fun ironic metaphoric image versus a literal interpretation of gender in our society. Porcelain is used to represent the female forms due to its’ very smooth and supple characteristics which are frequently considered feminine, and the male forms are represented by stoneware because of the raw rough properties that can be commonly considered masculine. Although the forms are abstract figure representations I still wanted the artistic aesthetics to be represented in my work, so I have fired the forms raw, as a kind of homage to sculptures from antiquity.  

 

This combination of traditional techniques and contemporary concepts entices participation by the viewer making palpable, the ideological ideas regarding gender in our current society.