Magda Gluszek

Artist Statement

The ways in which we cultivate our visual self-presentations create a narrative that is sometimes louder than (and often in conflict with) what we might say about ourselves if prompted verbally to tell our “story.” These constructions unwittingly reveal aspects of our personalities that we might not always be aware of, or prepared to share. Sometimes these stories are very individualistic expressions, at other times they reflect the narrative of our collective culture. They alternate between performance and truth.

Interactions with our environment influence a specific part of our narrative as humans. Cultural shifts continuously affect how we view nature, as well as our place within it. They vacillate between presenting it as something to be held in awe, or feared, and an entity to be possessed and conquered. We wear our individual relationship to nature as yet another way of presenting ourselves to each other.

-- Magda Gluszek

Bio

Magda Gluszek received her MFA in ceramics from the University of Florida. She was a resident artist at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Roswell Art Center West in Roswell, Georgia. She has also been an artist in residence internationally at the Skopelos Foundation for the Arts in Greece and at La Fragua in Belalcazar, Spain. She is currently full-time art faculty and gallery director at Northland Pioneer College in Show Low, Arizona. Magda was an Invited Artist at the 2010 Figurative Association Symposium at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and a 2011 NCECA Emerging Artist. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and she has instructed workshops at several nationally recognized art centers, including Santa Fe Clay, Reitz Ranch Center for the Ceramic Arts, and Clay Arts Vegas.