Laila Stevens’ Artist Statement
I work with clay to make sculpture. I have always found beauty in scientific images, whether it be the structure of an organelle or the lattice of complex molecules, and this outlook informs my creative direction. Through this body of work, I have merged my interests and studies in biology, chemistry, and ceramics.
By hand-building earthenware sculptures I am able to model amorphous forms inspired by organic structures. My most successful pieces are made when I embrace the spontaneity of both the building and firing processes and allow the work to change and develop. When I construct the forms of my sculptures, I build them one half at a time, with the only requirement being that the two halves must line up when they are fitted together. Through this method, the forms I make are both soft and heavy, broad and specific, and strange yet beautiful. I work to embrace these dichotomies, with all of the paradoxical elements coexisting. Next, I use terra sigillata, slip, stain, and metallic lusters to create surface designs that encompass the body like a skin.
Since I rely heavily on biological imagery for inspiration, the current pandemic-filled world, saturated with photos of the COVID-19 virus, made me want to explore those viruses further as three-dimensional entities, rather than flat and unapproachable on a page.
However, after months of exploration and experimentation, my sculptures have moved beyond a direct connection to those former references and have instead become abstract objects. At times they remind me of a rock or an animal, and at other times, I clearly see the outline of a scapula or pelvis. This kind of individualized and conditional implication is very alluring to me.
I do not think that something has to be completely recognizable or understood to possess beauty. In fact, sometimes the things that are novel or strange are the most captivating. And while captivation does not always equate to beauty or wonder, I think there is something fascinating to be discovered about anything. And in this way, I believe there is great beauty in all existence.