Bolivar Art Gallery
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  • MFA show 2021
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  • Home
  • Foundations Show 2021
  • You Stole My Hat // Jenny Ustick
  • Flowers for the Saints // Amalia Galdona Broche // MFA Thesis Show
  • Self-Soothe // Chelsea Clarke // MFA Thesis Show
  • MFA show 2021
  • Archive of Past Shows
Brent Pafford
brentpafford.com
Picture
POPJCT DISCO, midrange porcelain (cone 6 oxidization), glaze, glitter, resin,
epoxy, mason stain and glass knob, 4" x 4.5" x 3.5", 2020
Picture
POPJCT RUFF CUT, midrange porcelain (cone 6 oxidization), glaze, glitter, resin,
epoxy, mason stain and pyrite, 4" x 4.5" x 3.5", 2020
Picture
POPJCT FRINGE, midrange porcelain (cone 6 oxidization), glaze, glitter, resin,
epoxy, mason stain, fringe and found objects, 8" x 4" x 3.5", 2020

Artist Statement
POPJCT /PÄPJEKT/ (NOUN): An object critical of contemporary culture’s compulsion to objectify and idolize the self and its distinctiveness. From disparate materials, contrary textures, and incompatible forms, POPJCTs are intended to manifest harmonious but revealing interactions. These interactions are of the individual with culture, and evoke the ephemerality, disposability, function, utility, value, and experiential worth found and lost in individuality.

POPJCTs reflect my development as an artist. They epitomize a journey of exploration which began with abstract sculpture in undergraduate studies, transitioned to utilitarian forms, and has arrived at body of work which invokes the everyday – the functional, the found, the ordinary – only to subvert it through individualization, through queering. From my practice in utilitarian ceramics, I came to recognize that everyday objects are intimate catalysts for thought and conversation; they are vessels of experience and reference, and their tangible usability enables them to be shared through time.

In developing this body of work, I found that I could create objects that solicit tactile interaction and satisfy physical touch, and at the same time elicit questioning and engender uncertainty. These experiences are contingent upon interaction between the object and the individual: they reject norms of instantaneous consumption and immediate disposability, and expect contemplation and connectivity. They make use of the everyday – shapes that are familiar and register as practical – while undermining that comfort with inflected forms, unexpected surfaces, and insecure grasps. Where a maker’s mark had always been, a sheen of glitter now flows. As the presence of these revealing interactions has become more evident to me, I am becoming more attuned to the role of space in the interactions POPJCTs embody – the environment in which one’s life and moment intersect with an object in large part determines the potency of the interaction, and expressivity of the object. The next stage of my work is to develop spaces that project POPJCTs into sculpted, occupiable zones which permit encompassing intersection and interaction.
  • Home
  • Foundations Show 2021
  • You Stole My Hat // Jenny Ustick
  • Flowers for the Saints // Amalia Galdona Broche // MFA Thesis Show
  • Self-Soothe // Chelsea Clarke // MFA Thesis Show
  • MFA show 2021
  • Archive of Past Shows