Caroline Slotte

Ceramic Artist Caroline Slotte on Her Sandblasting Process & Ascribed Memory in Her Work

Posted March 30, 2016 in Blog

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Caroline Slotte, plate from the “Tracing” series, 2015. Reworked second-hand ceramics. Photo by Caroline Slotte.

As part of the social media campaign “Can You Name Five Women Artists?” this blog entry celebrates a female artist whose work is on view in our galleries. Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) joined The National Museum of Women in the Arts along with several other institutions around the country to celebrate female artists for Women’s History Month. To read other articles in our series of #5womenartists, click here.

This week, HCCC’s Curatorial Fellow Sarah Darro asked At Your Service artist, Caroline Slotte, a few questions about the processes and inspiration behind her work.

Sarah Darro: Memories are formed and cemented, reinforcing neural pathways in our brains through repetition. Likewise, through recurring strokes, your Tracing Series transforms the decorative patterns of antique plates into intricate three-dimensional reliefs. Could you explain your process and how it relates to this physiological occurrence in the brain?

Caroline Slotte:  A recurring theme in my work concerns the interpretation of visual information – how for instance a detail that is difficult to read, a bearer of information that can only barely be decoded, has the capacity to attract the gaze and captivate attention. I frequently employ techniques of reduction and removal and have often been surprised by how little visual information that is needed in order to suggest a connection or a pictorial reference. The risk of a work becoming over-explicit in its expression is far greater than the risk of visual allusions being too subtle. Continue Reading »