Artist Statement for Dennis Austin
How many times have you been driving, and you do those double takes with your head when you see something interesting? But it’s gone so fast that you didn’t even get to really see it, and it’s recessed to the back of your brain, forgotten and consumed by the bustle of everyday life. As we age and grow, the environment that surrounds us affects or lives and shapes us into who we are. I feel that we as humans fall easy to unimportant, unhealthy means of living, such as consumerism, malnutrition, and most importantly, trend. You can learn more about yourself and the world in which you live, in a five-minute walk than a five-minute car ride. We are a fast paced yet lazy race, which needs to take more time when living, and maybe walk to destinations.
As in nature, upon observation, the simplest things can make themselves out to be the most intriguing and detailed. I love to look at my environment. I am overwhelmed every day, by media, rules, textures, shapes, people, colors, etc. Through interaction, I am able to learn and understand more about the world around me. Changing the environment opens up new ways to interact within your self. Using ones’ imagination, like when we were kids and had to play by ourselves: always reintroduces what it’s like to be a free spirit and to enjoy everything around you. What did you do when you were alone?
You ride a roller coaster for the first time, and it’s scary. When it’s over, the sensation of conquering, the rush of the experience, fills you with what feeling? A tingling inside making it so much sweeter: directing you to the back of the line for the second time. The world is a very abrasive place, both physically and mentally. Fear controls how much of this abrasion you allow to touch you. Sometimes pain is therapeutic. When you get scared what do you do?
I treat ceramics with these same attitudes. I like my work to use the means of an elaborate ornate image, or by using the simplest of forms with the most difficult of textures, to question and challenge the participants traditional ideologies as which they were trained on form and function. Our world is infinite in all it provides. Not to experience as much as we can, is a waste of time, and a loss on self discovery.
