Clara Grace Hoag ( she/her )

In my artwork, a dense visual language suggests the complexity of the human experience. We are all - in our bodies, in our cities, in our collective memories – an accumulation of milestones. The world this creates is both chaotic and delightful: every brick, every limb, every face, every tower, every window, every chunk, every piece of “stuff” comes together in continuous movement. Skyscrapers, apartments, rubble, and tattoos are embedded into (or onto) a body or pile up, suggesting struggle, inner turmoil, or abundance. I work primarily with clay because it speaks to the idea of “building” or of being “built” —literally, metaphorically, and philosophically. When I work, I consider bricks, adobe, and the history of architecture; the history of figuration in art (especially medieval iconography and sculpted deities); and the use of ‘clay’ in American folk songs as a metaphor for unsteady footing, a lost love, and the inevitability of change. In other words, my work is about life: everything looks fragile but holds; vulnerability and resilience fight, constantly seeking balance. Each piece is emblematic of the process of “living” – of trial and tribulation, failure and success, pushing us forward, one achievement after another. We advance one step at a time, until something new is created.

Clara Hoag is an artist and teacher living and working in Houston, TX (USA). Clara has been a resident artist at The Archie Bray Foundation (Helena, MT) and The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (TX); she has received grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation (Canada), The Puffin Foundation (New Jersey), and the Houston Arts Alliance; and she has shown extensively in group and solo exhibitions in the United States. Clara received two BFAs from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) in 2009, and she received her MFA in Ceramics from the University of Georgia (Athens) in 2013. Clara teaches ceramics as a full-time professor at Houston City College.