Bailey Arend

Artist Statement

Awareness comes through the body. To fully comprehend a piece of clay I must do more than look at it. I touch it, smell it, step on it, stretch it grind it to powder, reach my arm through it, cut it, slake it in water, desiccate it, place it in context in the environment. I engage with it viscerally to see it for what it is.

My work links action to observation and recording. Drawing heightens the senses of the artist, requiring focus on light, angles and shadows, and the position of the body in relation to the mark being made. The action is inseparable from the observations, and it generates artifacts in the process, which act as a record of events. The motivation is learning through physical perception.

This heightened awareness can lead to deeper understanding of the relationships between body and environment. My work uses the movement of body to understand industrial and ecological systems personally. I take up these systems and materials and live them, comprehending gravity, water, time, charcoal and clay kinesthetically. These engagements are ultimately a means of locating my place within the vast networks that form the world.

-- Bailey Arend

Bio

Bailey Arend (b. 1987 Anchorage, Alaska) explores relationships between body, action, material and ecology. He has been awarded residencies and fellowships including the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, and the Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts. He has had solo exhibitions at Lacuna Gallery in Minneapolis, MN, The International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Anchorage, AK, The Bunnell Street Arts Center in Homer, AK, Claymakers in Durham, NC and a two-person show at the Fosdick-Nelson Gallery at Alfred University. Bailey Arend received his MFA from Alfred University, and taught as Visiting Assistant Professor of Ceramics at Appalachian State University.