Anne Drew Potter and Robert Simon
Anne Drew Potter's "Get off the Boat"
"Get Off The Boat" addresses the tensions between population and scarcity (or perceived scarcity) that are particularly salient to contemporary humanity. The iconic image of the overloaded boat precedes, but still accurately represents, the contemporary refugee crises. In turn, these crises starkly highlight our current value struggles as a species. It is a work that is simultaneously painful and satirical – emphasizing both the absurdity and the cruelty of our resource hoarding, protectionism, and commodification of human life. The choice of black clay and the use of an expressionist rendering of the figures is in direct homage to Francisco Goya’s "Black Paintings," that also depict these problematic qualities of human nature.
About Anne Drew Potter: Anne Drew Potter has coalesced her fascination with, adoration of, and abhorence for the human condition into a unique sculptural language. With a formal background in both academic figure sculpture and ceramics, she manipulates anatomical forms to create unsettling and ambiguous figures that address the ways in which social meaning is projected onto the forms of the body. Her early involvement in social work and her willingness to explore diverse cultures (she has lived in Mexico, Canada and Germany as well as throughout the United States, and speaks Spanish, German and English) inform her emotionally charged figures and the complex narratives behind her installations. Her work is designed to be accessible at multiple levels - providing both a sensual and intellectual experience.
Robert Simon on his work
Sculpture and ceramics are like warring cousins whose mutual relation is a medium. In its malleable state, clay is sculpture’s tool for improvisation. Without it, my work would be unthinkable, as each piece is a synthesis of approximations to inchoate images in my mind, rather than a copy from life. The clay is modeled to create a chiaroscuro of surface, a pattern of light and shadow analogous to the tonal structure of a drawing but arising from the effect of illumination on the undulations of the sculpted form. When the modeling has reached a satisfactory state, the work would be complete except that the material is not yet in durable form. On the other hand, a ceramic artist shapes the clay as a dimensional canvas upon which to paint with minerals that get transformed by heat. Accordingly, the artistic intention is not fully visible until the object emerges from the kiln. How might the alchemy of ceramics be channeled to augment a sculptural image while preserving its quintessential chiaroscuro design? The atmosphere inside a woodburning kiln would not seem useful to that project, as the firing process deposits overlay patterns of flashing and ash on the form that obscure its surface modeling and are intrinsically difficult to control. Against that outcome, I fire only to the cusp of vitrification, and deflect the flame by turning the back of the piece toward it. The clay body remains uncoated, and is only affected by the ambient atmosphere in the kiln. This method promotes a variant of flashing called “haloing”--a binary alteration of the color of the clay from warm to cool, consistent with the peaks and valleys of the surface. The ceramic process synchronizes with the sculptural form; there’s a wedding in the family.
About Robert Simon: Robert Simon earned a B.A. in Art History at Washington University and a certificate in studio art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He has been a member of the graduate faculty at the New York Academy of Art since 1995. He is represented by the John Davis Gallery, which hosted his most recent solo exhibition in the summer of 2017. He is currently at work for his forthcoming 2019 solo exhibition as a featured artist of the gallery.