Christyl Boger

As an artist I have always been interested in the strange balancing act performed by the human animal; in our ongoing struggle between impulse and control, personal and communal agenda, and the desires of the animal body overlaid by a veneer of cultural constraint. Finding a physical form for these thoughts has involved two additional parameters, the first a concern for issues of representation and the second a commitment to the contemporary possibilities of clay as a medium. My intent has been to explore areas where these concerns intersect, and has involved confronting the complex historical associations of both ceramics objects and figurative sculpture.

Many elements in the modern history of ceramics can be viewed in terms of internal and external mechanisms that structure human behavior, i.e. table manners and the ceremonies of dining, the small domestic prerogatives of women, the fetishistic nature of collecting and acquisition. For several years my most overt ceramic reference has been to the figurine, a form associated with decoration, domesticity, and display. Conflating the contemporary figure and the decorative ceramic object creates a representation of a subject directly shaped by its cultural heritage. The "figure-as-figurine" is diminished in a way that is as much psychological as physical - it's purpose is to fit in, flatter, support, and seduce.

A related reference has been to the elaborate and ornate ware produced by the historic European ceramic factories of Sevres, Meissen, and Minton. It was an alchemist who after years of forced employment by an ambitious prince eventually unlocked the secret to formulating true porcelain in Europe.



At the time this substance was more valuable than gold, and soon it's manufacture was financing the expansion of empires. My figures are products of this inherited system of power, comfort, and domesticity, but also reflect the unfulfilled metaphysical yearnings of the alchemist. They wear the signs of their nature as well as their enculturation. I use motifs of traditional china patterns that can also be read as sheer clothing. The postures of classical repose at second glance reveal gestures frozen somewhere between the act of concealment and flagrant self display. Suggestively placed gold embellishments imply a both a Midas' touch and a courtesan's proposition. These are figures caught in a narcissistic loop, both object and objectifier.