Kate MacDowell is an internationally known artist based in Portland who crafts delicate porcelain sculptures that are eerie in nature. She builds these unusual sculptures to express her interpretation of conflict between the natural world and our contemporary world's impact on the environment. The artist sculpts each piece by hand, often building a single solid form that's then hollowed from the inside. The owl body nesting a human skull or a human brain that's stuffed with flora and fauna can be disturbing as human form intertwines with animal figures.
"In my work this romantic ideal of union with the natural world conflicts with our contemporary impact on the environment. These pieces are in part responses to environmental stressors including climate change, toxic pollution, and gm crops. They also borrow from myth, art history, figures of speech and other cultural touchstones. In some pieces aspects of the human figure stand-in for ourselves and act out sometimes harrowing, sometimes humorous transformations which illustrate our current relationship with the natural world. In others, animals take on anthropomorphic qualities when they are given safety equipment to attempt to protect them from man-made environmental threats."
"In my work this romantic ideal of union with the natural world conflicts with our contemporary impact on the environment. These pieces are in part responses to environmental stressors including climate change, toxic pollution, and gm crops. They also borrow from myth, art history, figures of speech and other cultural touchstones. In some pieces aspects of the human figure stand-in for ourselves and act out sometimes harrowing, sometimes humorous transformations which illustrate our current relationship with the natural world. In others, animals take on anthropomorphic qualities when they are given safety equipment to attempt to protect them from man-made environmental threats."
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