Nick Ross

BFA Studio Art

My process begins with mixing. Paint is mixed and is manipulated until a moment when it would lose it’s resonance if it is mixed any further. For ceramics the process begins with mixing clay. I work with red earthenware, gray stoneware, and porcelain. Once the clay is mixed it is hand wedged and either used on the throwing wheel to make vessels such as bowls or cups, or it is rolled on the slab press. The strips are then used as building blocks for the realization of a form. 

In order to find a direction I use silence as a source. As you become aware of silence, you begin to realize there is dynamism in what would intuitively seem empty. Using silence as a discipline creates a space in which thought becomes transfigured into form. As the picture becomes more articulated it is simultaneously divided and combined with other forms to represent the layers that interact and make reality dynamic. Paint is piled on paint, clay forms become meshed together with other forms, glaze textures are layered on top of clay and slip textures, and finally three dimensional space merges with two dimensional space which represents the unification of painting, drawing, and sculpture. 

The act of experiencing the differing levels of articulation leads to the realization that differences between things only occur on a certain level of perception. On a subtler level of perception the connectedness between all things acknowledges a common source. My work is my humble acknowledgement of my place in the divisible universe.