Joshua R. Clark

Clark’s works are constructed out of cone 10 stained porcelain. The works are a combination of hand-built and slip-casted forms and objects. All slip-casts come from original molds created by the artist. Each piece is fired 3 or 4 times. The pieces all go through an initial bisque firing, a cone 10 glaze firing, an additional cone 1 glaze firing, and sometimes an additional luster firing. In these sculptures I am using glaze as both surface decoration and sculptural dimensional material. Clark’s work uses referential objects that are humorous and uncanny: surface visions that simultaneously celebrate and critique the domestic American landscape. The sculptures create a seductive visual space through attention to color, light, texture, form, and arrangement.

The individual artworks, create a strange psychological atmosphere where the viewer can recognize familiar visual cues, yet a disconnect remains between the subject and the context. 

Clark is interested in that which captures our attention for surface reasons, but which continues to haunt us for perhaps deeper universalities connected to the way in which humans generate meaning out of desperate experiences. The subject matter of the sculptures evolves from Clark’s daily associative experiences. A catalog of instances, which communicate telling insights into the importance of what we fixate on countered balanced by what we ignore or take for granted. In this way bring to light the desires of our unconscious collective psychology complicating the conventions present in their daily lives.