SSW welcomes Jessica Smith, the first artist in residence of 2012 to visit as part of our Emerging Artist series.
Jessica Smith is an American ceramic artist from Tuscaloosa, Alabama and creates work that addresses humor and meticulousness through playful recontextualisation of the familiar consumer product, the gummy bear. The pieces she creates are intricate and architectural in nature; structural frameworks made out of a complex of stoneware and porcelain clay gummy bears.
Gummy Bears are a candy I coveted as a child. While not always in the shape of a bear, gummies and candies are ubiquitous in world culture. My sculptural ceramic gummy bears are assembled into tessellating sculptures. I am interested in exploring how this fragmented childhood pleasure of the gummy bear can be a metaphor for comfort, protection and containment.
Originally from Chicago, Jessica now teaches Ceramics at The University of West Alabama. During her stay at SSW she will be working towards an exhibition to be installed at a gallery in western Alabama this coming November, and will be with us until the 25th of June.
Jessica busy at work constructing new pieces in the SSW ceramics workshop-
