Ian Meares Show at Red Lodge

Ian has some nice pieces for sale at the Red Lodge:


         

http://www.redlodgeclaycenter.com/lists.php?aid=283&type=artist#.Us0EjfYd5oU




Ian Meares
St. Petersburg, FL

Artist's Statement
What if I told you that I am not so sure of what to make of things; I am reminded, "this too shall pass," only this feeling doesn't quite seem to... And what if I told you this is what propels me to make artwork?

In this way I make work, as a research practice, positing questions and working out explanations through things, actions, words and ideas, often intuitively and without the luxury of rationalization's authority. I work to create allegorical frameworks guided by nomadic perspectives on things and our movements amongst them.

Through my work I create analogies based in materials and a shared language and history. I use these conceptually as ready-mades to construct and compose a vocabulary, grammar and ultimately narratives. Functioning as an exploration of how things change and connect to one another and that third space created by their oscillating tension.

The work gains flexibility with my allegorical usage of materials and concepts. Fired ceramic objects relate to an implied sense of security through durability, while at the same time moist clay and slip remind us that we, like our spatial relations, are in flux. Appropriated objects point to our contextualization in this world of artifacts with meanings and histories that are beyond ours, while spatial relations reveal our proximity and sense of urgency and desire. This practice fuses light with shadow, ceramic objects with the phenomena of moist slip, and an assortment of appropriated ready-mades, to conduct a study of the terms of our embedded-ness. This is a query of how we, our selves and things, can belong to a place and time, while we simultaneously (re)conceive the world as we move through it, one step at a time, glimpsing, experiencing and adjusting.

This sort of alchemy advances the disruptive nature of the work and seeks the places where things and ideas touch. Utilizing and showing the flux and connectivity of the world, like many, I draw from my context and question it, as I can, as a means of traction. If we can recognize something we can over look it too. This is a process to create a wonder for the place we occupy and the spaces we move through and potentially opening dialogues for those whom we share a sense of the world with, ultimately reminding our selves that things change in unexpected and fascinating ways.

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