Title
Creation Date
2018
Preview
Medium
ceramic and wood
Description
Dimensions: 4 x 7 feet (overall)
Rights
© Michael David Vincent, 2018. Photo Credit: Allison Corona.
Exhibit Images
Keywords
borders, bricks, wall, ceramics, pottery, clay
2018
ceramic and wood
Dimensions: 4 x 7 feet (overall)
© Michael David Vincent, 2018. Photo Credit: Allison Corona.
borders, bricks, wall, ceramics, pottery, clay
Artist Statement
My work analyzes the juxtaposition between domestic and public spaces and serves as an abstracted representation of my own identity. By discussing the differences between my chosen and inherited communities- and the feelings of displacement I experience in both- the works reveals facets of my identity as both an individual and artist. This serves as a reclamation of the cultural identity markers that influence my works; a necessary step when these identities are dissected and scrutinized by others within the current political conversation (often without basic consideration of the common humanity of people who live and look and love like me).
My cultural influences: ethnic identity, sexual identity, and family history, inherently belong to me alone. However, they are also something that I am forced to share with individuals who believe that these intrinsic facets of myself are something they can critically analyze and ultimately find disagreeable-as if they were somehow whole and separate from myself. In today’s disordered political climate, these intrusions often come from people in positions of power that I cannot be allowed to ignore, as I am forced to live with the daily effects of their misguided actions and beliefs.
To understand my own place in the world, and to discover the borders of the spaces I occupy, I’ve constructed an installation that resembles a dilapidated wall (the edges of which follows the border between the United States and Mexico) while emphasizing pattern, borders, and the delineation of public spaces. Because pottery is so intrinsically linked to private, intimate, and domestic realms, by framing and storing works (almost as an offering of sorts) against symbols that represent people’s undue anxieties about nationality, I begin to foster discussion about identity, political power, disenfranchisement, and how to survive in a culture that is structured to exclude people it finds unusable. The physical nature of clay and ceramics have allowed me to turn the immaterial feelings of displacement into something that is tangible, real and now shared with the rest of the world.