Hannah Alex-Glasser

(AMERICAN)

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

My work grows out of a feeling of fundamental connection with nature, whose beauty, complexity and integrity have been, for me, a constant source of centering and awe. My work is inspired by the observable natural environment, the archaic substances and forces of our given world, but it is equally rooted in the symbolic realm of the inner world and in the experience of being human.

Strata — Layerings of earth, magma, cells, calcium, of waves, of the effects of erosion, the layering of time and energy, of experience, of consciousness —intermingle, co–exist, interconnect.

The Moon (and beyond) / Looking Up – Moon consciousness enters where sun consciousness leaves off — our vision is different in moonlight than in sunlight. Entwined with the feminine rhythm, Moon’s form of light and shadow is ever shifting — it is mysteriously there/not there. Humankind looks up and encounters this closest of heavenly bodies illuminating the darkness of the night and we are comforted, captivated — moonstruck. Conversely, it was from the perspective of the moon that we humans caught the first breathtaking, admonishing glimpse of our own planetary home – floating in the dark infinity, exquisitely beautiful, beleaguered, fragile. My sculptural moon/planet musings have unfolded as well in the spirit of the moonstruck Comedia tragi–comic clown, Pierrot, and of Saint–Exupery’s Little Prince.

These clay works are hand–built, unglazed and fired in an open flame firing. I am conscious as I work that the medium in my hands is the earth itself, the prima materia, and that it and the vessel–form — however abstracted or ambiguous — are deeply connected to the archetypal feminine. I experience both the process and works themselves as personal expressions, but beyond this, I create and view them as gestures of tribute and my form of quiet activism; the respectful, repetitive and persistent physical and symbolic raising up the earth — an act of cultural re–balancing.

It is my hope that my artwork will touch those who see it, that it will resonate with their feeling and experience of being.

~ Hannah Alex-Glasser