Master of Fine Arts Thesis Defense by Marilyn Perry, CVPA – Ceramics
Abstract:
My thesis project explores themes of impermanence, transformation, and interconnectedness through the lens of respect for northern landscapes and how they change - both rapidly and over eons. Ceramic and handmade paper installations are inspired by icy geological forms - glaciers, ice fields, and mountains - that are repositories of memory. The work encapsulates the rhythms and moments of cyclical change, evoking a sense of place, and embodies the paradox of loss and beauty.
Reflecting on personal memories of early aesthetic experiences, this essay considers how formative aesthetic memory can shape artistic influences and practices. Inspired by the Land Art movement and Ecological Art with artists such as Michael Heizer, James Turrell, Paul Walde, and Roni Horn, the artwork emphasizes deep geological time, cycles of accretion, erosion, and transformation within ice and earth. The installations of this project evoke a heightened awareness between the human and more than human worlds.
The thesis also explores the influence of minimalism, spatial dynamics, and sensory engagement in shaping the viewer’s experience. Alongside scientific data of climate change and geological processes, the work emphasizes both traditional and innovative approaches to working with ceramics and handmade paper. Ceramics, the earth itself, is cyclical, and through freezing and creating extremely thin sheets of clay, the sculptures echo seasonal and historical shifts of time in snow and ice formation. Both ceramic and paper processes involve fine particles suspended in water, compressed and dried to create forms that are simultaneously fragile and strong, with evidence of the making of patterns.
The architectural language of churches provides a complementary framework, creating spaces of reverence, reflection, and meditation. By interweaving symbols of devotion with icons of deep geological time and momentary glimpses of future time, I intend viewers to fully experience the present. Within this contemplation of the present there is opportunity to transcend an ‘out there’ sense of nature’s wilderness and allow a kinship with a world beyond delicate humanness.
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