Everyone at SCC has been ?excited to watch Linda Swanson?s, our 2013 Raphael Prize Winner, installation Terra Muto evolve over the past few months. The piece features five water filled fabric bags suspended over a large sheet of metal, which is covered in a fine clay powder. Since the opening of Transformation 9: Contemporary Works in Ceramics, in April, the dripping water has slowly eroded the clay base, the originally pristine plane now a landscape stained red by the rusting iron. Instead of using the fire of the kiln to transform clay,?Terra Muto?explores water as a vehicle for change. Swanson says the piece was inspired by a recent trip to Iceland and her observations of the land formations there.?
Linda Swanson was born in Los Angeles, and now lives and works in Montreal, Canada. She received her MFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2005, and has shown her work internationally in multiple solo shows.
Swanson’s work is deeply process based, ?bringing us closer to aspects of the medium that are usually felt by the maker.? Her artistic process is not a mere step towards her final product, but rather, is an integral part of each finished piece. By keeping her process transparent in her work, she is able showcase her fascination with transformation and evolution. Her sculptures and installations are temporal experiments, and her viewers get to be a part of the discovery.
Transformation 9 ?has been extended through January 3, 2015, and we are excited to see how Terra Muto develops by then. If you haven?t been back to our main gallery since the opening, it?s definitely worth seeing the installation?s progress in the past few months. The show features several other pieces by Swanson as well as work by 30 other notable ceramic artists.
