Artist's Statement

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.

More recently I have been incorporating elements from non-ceramic sculptural work. The piece titled �Offshore� was inspired by Italian Baroque fountains, as well as two pieces of writing, Penelope Fitzgerald�s novel about the precarious emotional and physical lives of a group of Thames barge dwellers, and a journalistic piece on the use of island-nation banks for money laundering or tax shelters. Public statuary displays the wealth and power of a particular governing body, as well as reaffirming it�s approved narratives and Myths. �Offshore� was the beginning of a series of pieces featuring figures posed with variations on inflatable beach toys, that reference the heroic narratives of Greco roman mythology, sea monsters and gods, nymphs and dolphins, but in a somewhat absurdist way.

In the newer work I have gradually moved away from the decorative surface motifs of the figurine pieces, but have nonetheless maintained the glaze surface that places the work squarely in the lineage of ceramic sculpture rather than that of stone, metal or other material.

I choose to ally myself with this and other craft traditions because its practitioners tend to embrace the historical antecedents of human work. By re-contextualizing the mannered and distinctly recognizable forms of historical western art, my intent is to create a sympathetic representation of the human subject within a critical re-examination of cultural identity.

Christyl Boger
Assistant Professor
Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Art
Indiana University

Studio: 123 Fine Arts Building
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405