Austin Coudriet
Austin Coudriet
My ceramic works are an intuitive reflection of my sketchbooks. My functional and sculptural pieces utilize amorphous and linear components that interact together to express the way I view myself in structured constructs. Time, society, social normalities, predeterminations, and the specificity of life to name a few. I create a grid composition as a reflection of these constructs and insert amorphous forms to represent my mental and/or emotional self within them.
My large scale work is an abstracted expression of self portraiture. Growing up I would draw with my father, an architect. I was always fascinated by the way he built with lines. His drawings were loose but intentional. Lines didn't start and stop at the right points, but each line was strong and had a purpose. For years I imitated this technique in my own sketchbooks, while creating aesthetically pleasing arrangements of objects, shapes, and colors. The closer in scale my objects got to myself the quicker I was able to understand their content and process their context.
In my current ceramic practice I am experimenting constantly. Pulling ideas from sketchbooks and inspiration boards. I am combining a wide variety of techniques to make sculptural vessels and functional sculptures. These pieces help me capture fleeting experiences and feelings, which causes quick change and evolution in my practice. While complex in form, my surfaces remain relatively subtle. Often only a single block of color is projected over the form in an act of unifying the various elements. This block is the piece’s name tag, suggesting a mood and calling attention to a specifically interesting area of a piece.