My current work studies the tension between personal and mythical realms. I create “unnatural” sculpture which synthesizes the human face and the body of wild animals. Initially, these forms can be shocking and repelling as viewers both recognize and reject their presence. The disruptive alignment of the human and the untamed asks us to accommodate what cannot be known. The juxtaposition of the intimate face and animal body asserts that human experience is mostly contained, a mask which is incomprehensible and psychologically complex.
We bring assumptions to any contemplation of the “wild.” The wild animals—coyotes, gazelles, wildebeests, fawns—evoke memory of what we cannot recall, memory of our primitive, dangerous selves. The tamed face, our face, is a mirror reflecting safety and cultivation. Emotion is caught in the eyes, the mouth, the tilt of the head. A single life, with its private and unique history, gazes back at us. I ask you to empathize, to seek out yourselves in the vulnerability of expression and to embrace a relationship between a specific experience and a great universal mystery. Here, the dichotomy between intimate and expansive terrain is celebrated, eliciting a primal response.
URL: www.kateclark.com
A Rough Start