In 2022, Americans are acknowledging mental health more widely — especially surrounding trauma. Many may know what it feels like to be disconnected from one’s self due to a traumatic experience that left us feeling unsafe, unworthy, and even unloved.
Reconnection explores paths to wholeness of individuals from varying walks of life and traumatic experiences, such as abandonment, domestic violence, and war. Through ceramic portraiture and animal symbolism, the work communicates each person’s reconnection to a state of authenticity. In addition, exploring how the vessel and mindful ritual can be offered as a tool towards reconnection; anchoring one’s attention to the present moment, and cultivating healing.
Artist Statement
My ceramic vessels and figurative sculptures are vehicles to investigate our human emotions and psyche. I view my role as an artist as an act of service and wonder how my work can best serve others. In contemporary America, I see many people disconnected from their emotional and physical well-being due to the many prevalent consequences of chronic stress and trauma. My work’s intention is to encourage emotional healing by sharing the lived experiences of others and through meditative interactions.
I make sculptural relief portraits to tell stories of those on the path to liberate themselves from mental prisons of childhood and adult traumas. Life-size portraits are paired with an animal (either real or mythological) establishing a duality. This creates a face-to-face conversation between the viewer and portraits as well as a symbolic relationship with the creatures — representing a reconnection to a transformed and authentic self.
My drinking and pouring forms, such as teapots and cups, help establish a relationship with my audience through sensory experience. In a guided class or alone, participants in my tea rituals are asked to notice little things about their cup, which most of the time are overlooked, such as surface, texture, weight, and temperature change as the beverage is being poured and sipped, smelled, and appreciated. This gives participants the opportunity to cultivate an awareness of the vessel, thus elevating tactile, visual, and olfactory perceptions.
My vessels and sculptures evoke raw emotions through their colorful yet earthy surfaces and a sense of motion, flow, energy, and torsion through fluid mark-making. With my pottery, I apply abstract textural marks with liquid clay to the forms. However, I carve into my sculptures resulting in recessed gestural lines.
Clay offers me an opportunity to share my truth and concern for my fellow humans. It is my desire through my ceramics to share the inspiring and healing journeys of others and educate people about introspective mindful rituals.
Artist Bio
Jason Wang is a ceramic artist who is currently a resident artist at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, MN. He intends his vessels and sculptures to invoke a strong emotional response in order to further the dialogue about identity, mental health, and healing in contemporary America. Jason earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, MO. He was awarded a scholarship to partake in a workshop at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, CO and has exhibited in group exhibitions at Leedy-Voulkos Art Center in Kansas City, MO.
