Ephemerality and permanence. Solitude and connection. Vulnerability and resilience. These are the contradictions considered by artists Louise Deroualle and Molly Peacock in their current bodies of work created over the last year.

As the global pandemic changed the world, both artists experienced their connection to the landscape as a solace to isolation. The ever-changing environments just outside of their doors became the foundation for two very diverse interpretations of our fragile and ephemeral world.

Deroualle’s process involves compressing the dark clay into a frame which constrains the form much like a window constrains a view, and then the image is painted with wax encaustic.  The encaustic material itself is fragile and ephemeral, while the clay is permanent and solid.  Peacock’s forms are hand-built; solid and tactile. The fragility is expressed in the form itself, where the voluminous cloud shape perches atop thin spires, forcing the viewer to confront a sense of precariousness.  Both collections strive to make sense of a world where we all share a heightened sense of vulnerability and upheaval. 

The exhibit, as a whole, balances between a sense of quiet contemplation and uneasy tension.  Two perspectives, approaching the same experience, on exhibit here.  

Louise Deroualle 

ARTIST STATEMENT

Coberta de Nuvens 

Uncertainty, anxiety, unease: isolated in my apartment, its comfort became confinement. I found solace through the views through my window. Contemplating nature has always given me the necessary strength to reconnect with myself: access, adjust and recover. 

Every minute of the day, every season of the year, the frame of my window is a stage for clouds and light to perform colors and movement in the sky.

The thick and ridged edges of the ceramic tablets record the pressure of its process to comply and be formed into rectangular shapes. Its weight suggests endurance; and its surface, the fluidity of a fleeing moment. The successive layers of water and pigments move and blend and build representations of my window views. 

Like a blanket that covers the body and gives warmth, the floating clouds outside my window bring me comfort and relief. They are formless, limitless and constantly in motion. They are free. I find connection and a sense of belonging by looking out and up to these ethereal formations. Touched by light, they frequently change colors; touched by wind they are always evolving and transforming. Clouds give me peace and perspective. They make the uncertain more bearable.

The thick layer of fog creates both a poetic and physical separation between the viewer and the surface. It slows and limits the vision. It cause ambiguity and turn reality less absolute. 

 Times of uncertainty…

BIOGRAPHY

Louise Deroualle received her MFA in Ceramics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2017 and her BFA in Visual Arts from Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado in Sao Paulo in 2001. Louise has exhibited her work in the USA and Brazil. In 2017 she was awarded the Roswell Artists-in-Residence fellowship. She is currently the Ceramic studio coordinator at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, in Colorado, where she also keeps her studio practice.

louisederoualle.com
@louise_deroualle

Molly Peacock

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is made intuitively, with relatively few tools. Using my hands I build these pieces from the  bottom up, pinching coils together and smoothing as I go. I’m looking at the many forms across global landscapes that are universally familiar. Clouds, trees, and snow are the primary sources of inspiration but I also have ideas about rain, lakes and oceans. 

These forms are all linked by their vulnerability to climate change. We already know that snowfall is becoming less predictable and widely variable. Cumulus clouds, the thick puffy heavy ones that give shade and protection from the ozone, are beginning to migrate away from the equator toward the poles. Deforestation is an ongoing problem that threatens trees ability to sequester CO2 from our atmosphere. My work, comprised of the soft undulating forms that reference clouds, thick blankets of snow, and groves of trees are a way of preserving shapes that may become increasingly rare in the near future because of our changing climate. Clay is both from the earth but also becomes permanent when fired, allowing me to preserve and honor the shapes of the landscape we all identify with today. While clay is permanent, the forms are meant to convey the vulnerability of our environment to climate change. Are the large masses on top of thin spires subject to imminent collapse? Will the forms melt away? These pieces are meant to inspire reflection, engaging the viewer in domestic spaces where I hope they offer a constant reminder of the beauty and the vulnerability of our world and the difficult choices ahead of us to avoid irreversible change.

BIOGRAPHY

Molly holds a Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics from Ohio University.  Previously, she also worked in the field of Environmental Science and holds a Masters of Environmental Science from Yale University.  She has been working as a studio artist at the Red Brick Center for the Arts for 8 years, and has shown her work nationally.  She currently lives in Snowmass Village Colorado with her husband and two daughters.

peacockceramicart.com
@mollyfpeacock