The Each Season Unlike the Last sculpture is outside the Hanes Art Center.
Artist Statement
"My work in ceramic sculpture explores the intersections between science and fiction, abstraction and observation, and human and nonhuman. I aim to challenge the mechanisms by which we categorize living things and deepen our understanding of our relationship with the biological environment. By blending elements from these dichotomies, I investigate the complex associations inherent in organic form, creating works that suggest a beauty and strangeness that could belong to any living thing. For my work in the Alumni Sculpture Garden, I created a larger-scale, site-specific installation comprising 53 separate pieces that exist somewhere between plant, animal, and fungal forms. Over the course of two months, I formed the pieces from 1600 pounds of custom-formulated sculpture clay, mixed my own glazes, and completed multiple firings in large gas kilns. I chose this particular site because I think the work contrasts beautifully with the linearity of the surrounding bricks and window panes. The colors were selected to contrast with the red bricks and to stand out against the sea of yellow ginkgo leaves that fall in autumn. I consider the work a meditation on growth patterns and seasonal changes. The forms emerge from the ground as a colony, yet each one contains a life of its own. The smaller, "younger" tendrils are lighter in color and positioned on the fringe of the main cluster, suggesting that the population will continue to expand. The title, Each Season Unlike the Last, alludes to how the artwork changes over time—whether it's the yellowing of the ginkgo trees in the fall, the snow that covers the ground in winter, or the daffodils that bloom around the pieces in the spring."
Created by Isys Hennigar (2017).