SCHUYLER FORSYTHE: Arms Outstretched
Clay Art Center Gallery, June 22 - Aug 03, 2024
(Artist-in-Residence) is a Hudson Valley native who received her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the State University of New York at New Paltz with a concentration in Ceramics. She has worked as a studio assistant for artists throughout the country and her works have been exhibited bi-coastally in group shows and markets. Schuyler’s work has been greatly inspired by her life growing up in rural America, and imagery from her travels spent exploring the vast American landscape. Through this most recent body of work, the artist is exploring lost familial narratives through figurative sculpture and ornamentation. This body of work was greatly inspired by American folk art, textile art and music. Forsythe describes from a young age that music has been her closest companion and she will often use lyrics or poetry as the catalyst for her sculptural work. The clay becomes a vessel for exploring the intrinsic qualities of the human experience, collective and yet completely alone. Schuyler’s work pays homage to the lineage of craftspeople who endured and persevered in order for her to be here today. She continues to explore the bounds of the ceramic medium and challenge the notions we hold about the possibilities of ceramic art.
Artist Statement
“In my current body of work, I am examining the complex and fleeting qualities of the environment around me. I use these sculptures to examine and explore the Intersection between self-identity and the natural world. I am often faced with a lonesome yearning or grief for the lost places of our past. A longing for a home to which I cannot return, a home which maybe never was. I often think about those who have come before me, those who experienced the same earth and landscapes, but in a time mostly now forgotten. Both our current surroundings and ancestral memory impact and question what it means to belong in our environment. Our histories continue to inform our present as our changing surroundings are a constant reflection of us and our pasts.”
Watch a short video of Schuyler Forsythe speaking about “Arms Outstretched”.
