AUSTIN COUDRIET
Far from exactly where I am
My work is an ongoing tactile conversation between soft amorphous forms and rigid linear components. The medium of clay offers me elasticity and mutability, capturing my touch like a photograph. When refined clay evokes crispness and rigidity, yielding physical and formal structure. Clay captivates me as it undergoes transformations. Its versatility in form and potential provides me with units upon which I can build and construct.
My creative process is a catalyst that helps me outwardly process my internal emotions. Through the use of tension, color and negative space I abstractly depict pivotal and ephemeral human stages such as grief, hardships, and transitions. My work is displayed in temporary compositions that adapt to the emotions being processed. The use of bright colors and playful arrangements is a facade masking the complex deconstruction of my internal state of being.
I collect inspiration from modernist architecture, mid century modern furniture, scaffolding and clouds. This imagery is recorded in a collection of sketch books, which I later reference when establishing new forms. As a child I would draw with my father, an architect, I was fascinated by the way he built with lines, they exceeded their boundaries yet they were contained by the image they formed, loose but intentional. As I transform my sketches into three-dimensional space I retain this quality of freedom found within structure.
Austin Coudriet, Clay Art Center Artist In Residence 2019 - 2021
