Memoir in Flora
Sarah McIntosh
Degree: BFA
Area: Ceramics
Sarah McIntosh
Thesis Statement
This collection of sculptures consists of human heads and hands enveloped in flora. I’m combining the representations of human interrelation and flora within the space of ceramic sculpture. Most works are conjoining of the human head as objects to demonstrate the communal existence and how one’s life is not just their own but affects many others. I’ve chosen heads and hands to express human connections through touch. I pinch each petal to activate the flora and leave the impression of touch. The use of washes promotes the appearance of touch under the glaze.
The flora interrupts, corrupts, and consumes the insides, pushes out of the orifices and blooms across the skin. The flora leaves the human objects stiff in rigor mortis, allowing it to flourish. It connects some of the recognizable features of the human parts together, binding them in death. As the body parts die the flora grows stronger; the flora here suggesting rebirth of the human object and it’s memories. The flora expunges the insides of the heads removing the gray matter that contains memories and emotions and replaces it with new vitality and growth.
Representational features lean and touch each other, forming a relationship, a new form that questions our notion of autonomous power. The flora propagates hope as it grows from the decay. The flora itself is overtly fleshy pink which evokes vulva imagery, heightening the concept of rebirth and reminds us that death is not the end.