Elaine Buss: Ambiguous Form, 2019-2022
To create my forms, I decontextualize historical utilitarian objects. My references include ancient grinding stones, water pipes, vertical loom weights, arches, and building fragments, among others. Anthropological sources provide a place of empathy with past humans and a way to understand my own humanity more thoroughly. I choose objects that reveal direct logic, touch, or process and then use the same visual language in my own forms. The resulting sculptures are not meant to allude to any specific origin or culture, but rather remain anonymous and elusive.
Floating between particular objects and ambiguously referential forms, I embrace the nondescript. I find mystery to be one of the most compelling emotions, and I try to arrive at a sense instead of a certainty in my work. It is humbling to be reminded that there is still so much beyond our empirical grasp. The ambiguous forms that I create relate to my own ineffable experience as a human; they assure me that it’s ok to exist in the space of the indeterminate. If my work can gesture towards, but not tell secrets or collapse into solidity, then I have opened up the space for experience.
Photo captions
- Breathe Before, Iteration 1, 2020, Ceramic, Terra Sigillata, Melted Minerals and Glass Frit, 5.5’ x 10’ x 2”
- Breathe Before, Iteration 2, 2021, Ceramic, Terra Sigillata, Melted Minerals and Glass Frit, 42” x 76” x 2”
- All the Inhales I can Manage, 2021, Ceramic, Terra Sigillata, Melted Minerals and Glass Frit, 30” x 18” x 8”
- Breathe Before, Iteration 2 (Detail), 2021, Ceramic, Terra Sigillata, Melted Minerals and Glass Frit, 42” x 76” x 2”
- Grinding Stone, 2021, Ceramic, Terra Sigillata, Fiberfrax, Melted Minerals and Glass Frit, 10” x 18” x 14”
- Grinding Stone, 2021, Ceramic, Terra Sigillata, Melted Minerals and Glass Frit, 13” x 20” x 18”
- Crossing and Dwelling, 2019, Earthenware, Terra Sigillata, Melted Minerals and Glass Frit, Ink, 9” x 28” x 9”
- Intermediary, 2022, Ceramic, Glass Frit, 24” x 13” x 11”
- Perceptual Boundaries, 2019, Ceramic, Terra Sigillata, Melted Minerals and Glass Frit, Plaster, 44” X 31’ X 19’
- Perceptual Boundaries, Detail, 2019, Ceramic, Terra Sigillata, Melted Minerals and Glass Frit, Plaster, 44” X 31’ X 19’
