November 5, 2015 – January 16, 2016
KATE CLEMENTS: Fa | eint
“Oh, be careful — if you breathe, it breaks!”
—The Glass Menagerie, scene IV
The physical quality of Kate Clements glassworks seems as delicate and ephemeral as a thought or whim. It’s as if her wall of glass, Thicket, or her crowns and veils defy expectation. They call to mind historical references of elegant ornament, adornment, fashion and ceremony. Visually they belie the hand of the maker and seem to have materialized independent of human intervention as if from an uncommon natural phenomenon. Like a spider’s web covered with dew or an icicle on a warm day, the seeming fragility of the material emphasizes the folly of their form, exposing their fragile and temporal vanity.
Of Clements’s crowns, she has said, “I am interested in women’s attempts to fit popular cultural representation and how often this results in a suspension of their critical self-awareness. How women’s efforts to fulfill these representations can lead to feelings of guilt and the simultaneous assertion of individual power and the creation of a ‘feminine mystique.’ Finally I am interested in the adornments of the celebration of the ‘perfect’ woman. These celebrations can include beauty queens, exotic dancers, and ironically in it’s most extreme manifestation: the bride.”
Kate Clements holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute, MO and an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. Her glass crowns have been featured in Italian Vogue magazine and she is currently a 2015 recipient of a Museum of Arts and Design residency in New York, NY.
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11-5 p.m. & by appointment.
For past exhibitions, please visit our archive.