Artist Statement of Samanta Batra Mehta

The multi-layered artwork I make is a commentary on the human condition. Understanding how past patterns of our experience and histories intertwine with the way we navigate our present day lives is of great interest to me. Themes in identity, personal history and culture are depicted and debated in my multilayered artworks that employ drawing, found objects, text, photo and installation. In a contemporary re-imagining of the ‘exquisite corpse’ genre, I oftentimes re-purpose collected antiquarian objects, imagery and texts along with my own drawings to render an altered visual engagement.

In my visual vocabulary, the human form and anatomical imagery is intertwined with foliage and nature. Nature/land/landscape is seen as a metaphor for the body (and vice-versa) and as a site for germination, nourishment and also plunder and transgression. My influences include history, myth, the natural world, medieval illustration and mystical philosophies, to name a few.

My work oftentimes speaks of journeys of dis/location. I spent my early childhood on a ship and have later lived on three different continents. My work examines what it means to be rooted and routed. As an incorrigible collector, my collections (of antiquarian maps, books, engravings and vintage objects) and my resultant artworks, give me a sense of permanence and points of reference in my shifting physical and emotional geographies.

Artist Statement of Adrian Arleo

 For over 40 years, my sculpture has combined human, animal and natural imagery to create a kind of emotional and poetic power. Often there's a suggestion of a vital interconnection between the human and non-human realms; the imagery arises from associations, concerns and obsessions that are at once intimate and universal. The work frequently references mythology and archetypes in addressing our vulnerability amid changing personal, environmental and political realities. By focussing on older, more mysterious ways of seeing the world, edges of consciousness and deeper levels of awareness suggest themselves.

Artist Statement of Katie MacDowell

 We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough.  We want something else which can hardly be put into words--to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. – C.S. Lewis.

In my work this romantic ideal of union with the natural world conflicts with our contemporary impact on the environment.  These pieces are in part responses to environmental stressors including climate change, toxic pollution, and gm crops.  They also borrow from myth, art history, figures of speech and other cultural touchstones.  In some pieces aspects of the human figure stand-in for ourselves and act out sometimes harrowing, sometimes humorous transformations which illustrate our current relationship with the natural world.  In others, animals take on anthropomorphic qualities when they are given safety equipment to attempt to protect them from man-made environmental threats.  In each case the union between man and nature is shown to be one of friction and discomfort with the disturbing implication that we too are vulnerable to being victimized by our destructive practices.

I hand sculpt each piece out of porcelain, often building a solid form and then hollowing it out.  Smaller forms are built petal by petal, branch by branch and allow me the chance to get immersed in close study of the structure of a blossom or a bee.  I chose porcelain for its luminous and ghostly qualities as well as its strength and ability to show fine texture.  It highlights both the impermanence and fragility of natural forms in a dying ecosystem, while paradoxically, being a material that can last for thousands of years and is historically associated with high status and value.  I see each piece as a captured and preserved specimen, a painstaking record of endangered natural forms and a commentary on our own culpability.

Artist Statement 2025

 
I begin by observing commonplace, everyday objects that are usually overlooked but essential to daily life. They are not inherently special or extraordinary but rather represent the ordinary and routine aspects of existence. These objects represent our time on this planet. Everyday objects will become historical artefacts that reflect our culture, technology, and daily life. Future archaeologists might study these objects to understand our society, just as we analyse artefacts from the past. I document these objects in illustrative forms, resembling 2D drawings rendered in clay. 

I let some of these objects challenge rational thought and carry me to seemingly unconnected realities. I tend to place them in surrealist settings in the spirit of Lautreamont's famous metaphor, "beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella." I take these everyday objects and playfully alter them to generate bizarre juxtapositions that subtly prompt the viewer to question their own eyes or, at the very least, shift perspective. I ask myself, "What if these objects had their own minds? What if they weren't only passive observers but active participants with agency? What if they were given the power to be something more?" I then transform these man-made objects into living, breathing hybrid creatures by fusing parts of them with elements from the natural world. Drawing inspiration from stories, proverbs, and idioms, I redeem the object from mundane to extraordinary.