My work explores themes of identity.  I use animal, human, and childhood forms within the framework of dreams, fantasy, wonder, and loss to manipulate and expand the viewer’s notion of identity.  I create ceramic elements and combine them with found objects of domestic origin.  The domestic objects and images I use (chairs, door knobs, dolls, clothes, etc.) provide the viewer with an entryway into the work through their own connection to and experience with the incorporated objects.  The found objects’ existing histories are integrated into the content of my work and these recovered parts are brought “back to life” in new contexts.  By combining new parts (those formed out of clay) with old parts (the found objects) I attempt to bridge the gap from past to present, from real to imagined, and from individual to communal.

I am attracted to clay because of its intrinsic quality of nothingness.  Clay exists as nothing more than raw material until it is intentionally formed.  It is a messy and humbling material.  Clay has been used for thousands of years to create a range of domestic and spiritual objects.  This fact makes ceramic art very accessible to people on both visceral and personal levels.  I tap into this aspect further by creating representational forms that people can identify and label, therefore discover/uncover a personal relationship with the artwork.

My work is both improvisatory and narrative.  I use elements of playfulness, whimsy, and darkness.  The process of working directly with my hands to form a block of clay into an object connects to the child-like behavior of imaginative play.  Rather than start from preliminary two-dimensional drawings, I direct my ideas and impulses immediately into the three-dimensional clay body.  My work combines both conscious and subconscious impulses.  I work instinctively in a process that parallels the often-times delicate approach an individual uses to find their way through life.

Undine Brod

March 2006