Sara Torgison ( She/Her )

The individual is a chimera of nature and culture. Personal identity is a messy amalgamation of things passed down, collected, drawn together, torn apart, and re-worked into uncertain futures. Working between clay and fiber, I engage and extend the finite ceramic surface through ongoing flexible additions. Explorations of multidisciplinary entanglements are deepened by contrasting figurative visuals against patterns and jumbles of unknown more-than-human roots. The resulting aggregation of quick movements and laborious meditations in material juxtaposition contemplates permanence and the ephemeral, the nature of rigidity and softness and—more importantly—the margins in which they meet. The work is a transformation back and forth from soft to hard, known to unknown, finite to infinite. By working the in-between into uncanny seams I explore the nature of life lived in continuous attunement, adjustment, and collaboration.

Sara Torgison (born 1987, San Diego, CA) is a multi-media artist drawing from ancient craft traditions including ceramics and fiber art. By underscoring the physical, temporal, and psychic implications of these materials, Sara addresses the tension between the human impulse to build, the relentless march of time, and the inevitability of entropy. She received a BFA in Ceramics from Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA and an MFA from the University of Cincinnati’s Department of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning. Sara has managed community-based ceramic art centers and university fine art department studios and is a seasonal art handler at the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center. She currently teaches at the University of Cincinnati, Miami University in Oxford OH, Queen City Clay, and at Wavepool Art Center in Cincinnati OH.