Statement on Recent Work:
In the depths of the forest floor, growth is produced from detritus. In these pieces, body forms, nature and destruction intermingle and grow out of each other. Our bodies are tied to the land we walk on, to the earth we nourish and to the earth we destroy. We carry the same DNA as plants and are able to live because of the oxygen plants produce. The atoms in our bodies come from stars and will eventually fall to the ground to reintegrate into nature. As we die and disappear, the earth will continue to transform and grow.
Aesthetic Vision
I am interested in creating moments where worlds flow together. These moments suggest there is something more than what appears to be: a place that is inhabited by both reality and fantasy, a place between remembering and forgetting where beauty and disgust are intertwined. These points where boundaries are dissolved reveal different possibilities for how to imagine the world.
These porcelain objects have disrupted borders. I want to capture a form as it changes from a contained, operating organism to something uncontained, fragmented and entwined with nature, animals and objects. This transformation of form, body or self is something we may experience in deep grief or death, in ecstasy or through intense connections to spiritual or inner worlds. These forms embody transition and become conduits for memory and fantasy.
Process:
I hand build forms with porcelain clay. Decorative elements on pieces come from the ornamentation found on house architecture and domestic objects. Most pieces are comprised of many individually built parts that are assembled in the kiln or onsite during installation.
Jessica Kreutter grew up in Denver, CO, received a BA in Anthropology/Sociology from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR and received a MFA in ceramics from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Jessica has been a resident artist at Anderson Ranch, Vermont Studio Center, Art342, PlatteForum, Caldera, Oregon College of Art and Craft, The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and Red Lodge Clay Center. In 2016, she was a recipient of a Houston Arts Alliance Individual Artist Grant. Jessica has shown at Vertigo Gallery (Denver), Castle Gallery (New York), Site131 (Dallas) and The Mütter Museum (Philadelphia). In Houston, she has exhibited at Art League Houston, BLUEorange and SITE Gallery at the Silos. Recently, Jessica exhibited work in the Craft Texas biennial at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and the Rotunda Gallery in Houston City Hall for Sculpture Month Houston. She is a full-time art faculty member at Houston Community College where she teaches ceramics and sculpture.