The Family Portrait Exhibition (2022) | In Conversation
Virtual Artist Talk
Guest Juror Kukuli Velarde and participating artists Mya Cluff, Teddy Osei, Mac McCusker, and Sara Torgison from The Family Portrait Exhibition
Join Guest Juror Kukuli Velarde and participating artists Mya Cluff, Teddy Osei, Mac McCusker, and Sara Torgison from The Family Portrait exhibition for a conversation that explores the meaning of family in contemporary culture and society. For more details about the exhibition, please visit our exhibition information here.
The Family Portrait explores the meaning and definition of the family unit in contemporary culture and society. Guest Juried by Kukuli Velarde, participating artists have responded to the theme by creating ceramic works that define what family means to them. The works presented explore the family unit in the broadest context to address and challenge traditional conceptions of what a family is, or could be.
*This webinar was originally aired September 19th, 2022, 7pm Eastern Time via Zoom.
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Guest Curator
Kukuli Velarde is an internationally renowned Peruvian born artist, whose works address issues of gender, social and cultural identity and hierarchies, tradition and inheritance, investigated and interpreted through the reference of historical and religious imagery. A BFA graduate of Hunter College, New York, her paintings and ceramics have been shown all over the world in both solo and group settings. Visit her website here.
“It is haunting to think about those who were here in the world before us. Who were those people who passed their DNA to us, and with it, gave us imprinted memories of their times, and the times in which their own ancestors lived?” - Kukuli Velarde
Speaking Artists
Mya Cluff is a ceramic artist living in the small town of Belgrade, Montana. Originally an Oregonian, she uprooted her PNW roots in 2017 to move to Montana and immerse herself in the rich clay culture found in the Big Sky state. A mother of two children, Mya is intrigued with the psychological, political and interpersonal ramifications of the maternal experience, and uses her own experience as well as the experiences of her peers to inform her work. She also draws much inspiration from written accounts on Motherhood, feminist literature, and folklore.
Mac McCusker states, “My current body of work addresses the issues concerning the LGBTQIA community, the rescinding of rights by the Trump administration and the bathroom laws sweeping the nation that threatens the safety of transgender individuals. I am documenting my own experiences and struggles through sculpture and narrative vessels.
Living and working in the state of North Carolina has forced me to address things affecting my community making me the subject of my own work. I have become, for better or worse, visible and vulnerable through making and creating ceramic sculptures. I am generating a dialogue about my life, my own narrative, political and social concerns, and through that process I am educating others.”
Teddy Osei is a ceramic sculptural artist and an educator whose work explores the delicate balance and tensions between traditional and contemporary culture of Ghana and the Western world. He uses clay as his primary medium in conjunction with performance and video art in engaging traditional and contemporary cultural discourse.
Sara Torgison states, “The individual is a chimera of nature and culture. Personal identity is a messy amalgamation of things passed down, collected, drawn together, torn apart, and re-worked into uncertain futures. Working between clay, fiber, and found materials, I engage with post-humanist feminist philosophy by extending ceramic surfaces through flexible fibrous additions. “