statement

Humans are complex, imaginative, and explorative beings. We are investigators, travelers, builders, and lovers. We create and destroy—build and tear down—come together and fall apart. We are thinkers and doers; determined to locate our exact physical and philosophical place within the universe. I am interested in the dichotomy between investigation and imagination, the physical world and the imaginary world, the effects of time, and how these concepts and places converge within the spectrum of visual art. I use experimental casting and burnout techniques to create three dimensional ceramic paintings in the forms of towers, walls, orbs, and tiles. Combustibles, ceramic materials, and clay are arranged inside plaster molds. The kiln firing process alters the materials, creating jagged void spaces, shimmering colors, and unique textures. These sculptures symbolize our evolution, our complexity, our history, and investigate our hidden emotions and thoughts within. 

process

My work is layered; in materials, in techniques, and in meanings. complex and detailed, fragile yet solid, these sculptures embody earth—inspired by its inhabitants, elements, formations, and processes.

Each sculpture begins with the clay—a viscous, liquefied porcelain that I developed to be fired solid and to replicate delicate textures and details.  I begin by pouring the clay into plaster molds very slowly, layer by layer. As I pour the clay, water is immediately absorbed, creating fine lines and ripples across the surface of the form. I line the edges of random layers with colorful crumbled clays and iridescent grains of granular ilmenite.

The molds I use are of different shapes: rectangular stacking blocks, spheres, cones, and two sizes of functional cups. Some completed sculptures are quite large—both wall-mounted and free-standing. Others are intimate and request close inspection. I use crumpled paper as a resist by scrunching and tucking it into the molds. The clay moves effortlessly around the paper’s bends and folds, creating unique cavities that appear once the paper burns away during the first firing.

After the first firing, many different materials are used to embellish the surface of the sculptures. Dark underglaze adds depth to subtle textures; red iron oxide enhances the colors of the glazes. Raw materials like soda ash, cryolite, frit, and lithium are painted on, each changing and creating elaborate shimmering colors, complex crystals, and rough, pillowy textures during thermodynamic processes.  

Firing these pieces solid creates small fissures and cracks throughout the sculpture’s mass. These imperfections are desired and accepted, as they show the limits and boundaries of the material and process.

The finished result is a three-dimensional ceramic painting of the earth, made from the earth, inspired by life experiences, impressionistic paintings, land masses, mountain ranges, glacial crevasses, flowing rivers, flood plains, footpaths, and fox-holes.

With an indefinite range of possibilities, these sculptures are complex in making and in meaning, and hold one true idea; that earth is where we live, what we are made of, and who we are.

bio

Sara Henry currently instructs art and ceramics courses at the Arkansas School for Math, Science, and the Arts, located in the historical town of Hot Springs.

Henry was born in a small village on the west coast of Alaska. Her family moved to Palmer in 1990, where they still live today.  

Henry received her BFA degree from the University of Alaska Anchorage and her MFA degree from the State University of New York at New Paltz. There, she discovered new and exciting ways of building complex sculptures using ceramic casting slip, combustible materials, oxides, and metals. Current events, ontology, existentialism and geology are motivations for concepts, techniques and material choices. Her work is a formal inquiry and material exploration that delves into the connections between humans and nature and investigates our history and our surroundings.

Henry has shown her work in solo and group exhibitions in Alaska, New York, Virginia, Nebraska, California, and Louisiana. Her work can be found in many private collections in the united states, most notably, her work has been included in the Robert and Karen Duncan Aviation Estate Collection of Lincoln, Nebraska.