Partial Narratives is a two-person exhibition featuring the sculptural ceramic work of Heather Kaplan & Undine Brod. The exhibition highlights the commonalities and differences between the two artists’ work while exploring similar ambiguous narrative structures.

Together, both work with an understated sense of narrative, play, and uncanny or imaginative juxtaposition in order to convey an inkling, a feeling, an emotion, an experience, or a story that is just below the surface.

Thank you to our 2023 Gallery Sponsor
Slifer Smith & Frampton!

PARTIAL NARRATIVES

by Heather Kaplan & Undine Brod

On display at the CCC Gallery and online in the shop
October 6th - November 3rd, 2023

First Friday Reception Event
October 6th | 6-8PM

Did you miss our virtual artist talk? Watch the Livestream below!

Instagram: @hgkaplan1
Website: hgkaplan.com

HEATHER KAPLAN

BIOGRAPHY
Heather is an artist, educator, and researcher living in the southwest. Heather received a BFA in ceramics and a BS and MS in Art Education from the Pennsylvania State University and she earned her doctorate in Art Education from the Ohio State University.  Employed as an Assistant Professor of Art Education at the University of Texas El Paso, her art making is an integral part of her life and career.  Not originally from the southwest border region, she is inspired by the textures of the desert and the complexity and contradictions of the border region. Since relocating in 2016 she has been using her ceramics to explore how landscapes can convey connection and objects create relations while still implying an autonomousness and interactivity with the viewer. Her academic writing and research involve the study of studio making and young children and she believes that this interest bleeds into her making practice. 

 ARTIST STATEMENT
My work is very much interested in the ontological and epistemological position of relationality in that it explores relationships between objects and discourse through play and assemblage. I create a visual language or encyclopedia of ceramic objects that I later curate, collect, or play with. The work is about exploring the vernacular of parts and the relationships that they create together, and setting in motion an implied narrative that the viewer is very much empowered to consider and enter into. These objects in their juxtaposition of everydayness, abstraction, and figuration, resist and invite narrative while rejecting ossification as a single author-driven story.

 This work is about uncanny landscapes and the play around creating and forming new familiarly unfamiliar spaces. Through the language of toys, figurines, and collectibles in their form, content, and size my works deal with the imaginative. My work begs to be arranged, rearranged, and played with. As a function of this, implied narratives emerge through the combination and recombination of objects. Texture and form drive my decision making as well as a desire to keep the content and narrative fluid.  Depending upon who curates (interacts with, arranges, etc.) the collection of objects different stories unfold.

Instagram: @undinebrod
Website: undinebrod.com

UNDINE BROD

BIOGRAPHY
Undine Brod received her MFA from The Ohio State University in 2011 and her BFA from the University of Washington in 1998. She also studied art at New York University and the NYS College of Ceramics at Alfred University. In addition to exhibiting in the United States and internationally, she has participated in many artist residencies including: John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Program in Wisconsin, International Ceramics Studio in Hungary, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Maine, Women’s Studio Workshop in New York, and the Yingge Ceramics Museum in Taiwan. Undine has also received several honors, grants and awards in recognition for and in support of her work including: the New York Art Sprinter’s Emerging Jewish Artist Award, an NCECA International Residency Grant, and the Women’s Studio Workshop Ora Schneider Residency Grant for Regional Artists. Although her main focus is on developing and exhibiting her own artwork, she has co-curated exhibitions. Currently, her home and studio are located in Rhinebeck, New York. 

ARTIST STATEMENT
My recent work consists of hand-built clay and mixed media animal sculptures adorned with non-traditional ceramic surfaces. The composite animals are not individual portraits nor true to any original source, rather they embody elements from several species into distinct forms. I omit or conceal the eyes to silence the animals, to evoke introspection, and to further enhance their ambiguity. The animals function as representations of emotional states not fixed to time, place, or specific experiences. I use animals as stand-ins for people to examine the human condition. Our emotional lives are often hidden through layers of physical disguise, however the animals I create “wear” their experiences on the outside. Although they are mute, they convey various feelings through gesture and expression. Through my work, I aim to bring emotion to the forefront of a conversation in order to more deeply connect with others.