Description

"Reconfigure" brings together contemporary ceramic artists whose work embraces fragmentation and reinvention. Borrowing Virginia Woolf’s description of Ethel Smyth as “a blaster of rocks and the maker of bridges,” the exhibition foregrounds the dual necessity of destruction and construction—of breaking apart in order to rebuild, of shattering form in order to reimagine possibility. As Lauren Elkin writes in Art Monsters, “fracturing and connecting are the essence of art.” This exhibition takes that idea as a provocation, presenting work that destabilizes the familiar while also offering new configurations of meaning and relation. By dismantling established forms, the artists uncover overlooked narratives, amplify silenced voices, and make space for alternative structures of knowing and being. In both form and concept, this exhibition insists on ceramics as a site of transformation—an art of breaking down and making anew. Corran Shrimpton is from Syracuse, NY and received her MFA from Georgia State University and her BFA from Alfred University. She has been an Artist-In-residence at a number of ceramic studios including The Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, FL, Lillstreet Art Center in Chicago, IL and most recently Mudflat Studios in Somerville, MA. Her work explores the restriction and contortion of women’s bodies required by our beauty-obsessed culture and prompts us to consider our expectations of femininity, their origins, and their effects. Her work has been exhibited across the United States and is in the permanent collection of The Newcomb Museum of Art. She is the recipient of the Mass Cultural Council Grant for Creative Individuals, the Lisa Elwell Ceramic Artist Endowed Encouragement Award, ArtFields Merit Award and the Bailey Emerging Artist Scholarship.