May 2023
INVITATIONAL EXHIBITION
MAGGIE CHAMBERS
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work fingers the liquid pulse of a desire for things to be both ways. Stemming from a life-long immersion in Christian, Purity Culture values, and a subsequent affinity for the trusty loop-hole strategy, I find great solace in the surrogate experience. Using sculptural materials as a proxy for my own body, I seek out moments of encounter that function both to amplify and sensitize an embodied reality that once went largely and necessarily unfelt.
A Double Pain, A Double Cure embodies those desires. Filled with loosely tempered sugar, the sculptural form embraces error as catalyst. Neither liquid, nor solid, its caramel-adjacent substance is suspended freely in the space of the not-quite-not. Fluid enough to slide through the cracks of careful hands. Firm enough to matte stray hairs. Amorphous enough for air-dried membranes that discourage sticky fingers and permanence.
A temporary release. An unwieldy allowance. A body run dry.
“Jesus wept.” -John 11:35
A common Lutheran Sunday School trivia fact, that singular breath stands as the shortest verse in the English translation of the Bible. Famous for its brevity. Memorable for its humanity. Cherished for the preciousness of the body which experiences such mortal release. Close Your Eyes for Me calls upon my own intimate knowledge of this piece of text and a longing to acknowledge the unnamed, feminine loss that too, wets those transparent, linen pages.
The words SHE WEPT, hold the history of their own tedious construction; each letter free formed with salt in the space of my hand. With each pinch, as I smooth edges into form, I welcome their granular presence into my skin; willing them to absorb my own watery excess.
INVITATIONAL EXHIBITION
MAGGIE CHAMBERS
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work fingers the liquid pulse of a desire for things to be both ways. Stemming from a life-long immersion in Christian, Purity Culture values, and a subsequent affinity for the trusty loop-hole strategy, I find great solace in the surrogate experience. Using sculptural materials as a proxy for my own body, I seek out moments of encounter that function both to amplify and sensitize an embodied reality that once went largely and necessarily unfelt.
A Double Pain, A Double Cure embodies those desires. Filled with loosely tempered sugar, the sculptural form embraces error as catalyst. Neither liquid, nor solid, its caramel-adjacent substance is suspended freely in the space of the not-quite-not. Fluid enough to slide through the cracks of careful hands. Firm enough to matte stray hairs. Amorphous enough for air-dried membranes that discourage sticky fingers and permanence.
A temporary release. An unwieldy allowance. A body run dry.
“Jesus wept.” -John 11:35
A common Lutheran Sunday School trivia fact, that singular breath stands as the shortest verse in the English translation of the Bible. Famous for its brevity. Memorable for its humanity. Cherished for the preciousness of the body which experiences such mortal release. Close Your Eyes for Me calls upon my own intimate knowledge of this piece of text and a longing to acknowledge the unnamed, feminine loss that too, wets those transparent, linen pages.
The words SHE WEPT, hold the history of their own tedious construction; each letter free formed with salt in the space of my hand. With each pinch, as I smooth edges into form, I welcome their granular presence into my skin; willing them to absorb my own watery excess.
Born and bred on Mid-Western sensibilities, Maggie Chambers is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor: Foundations Specialist at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Identifying as artist, writer, researcher, and educator, they are interested in Conceptual Art, video and feeling out the edges. Their work positions itself at the intersection of material and technology, occupying moments of transition to engender newly embodied potentials.
Chambers received their Master of Fine Arts degree from The Ohio State University with a concentration in Sculpture + The Expanded Field in 2021, and their B.F.A. degree in Printmaking from the University of Central Missouri in 2018. Maggie has exhibited their work nationally at The Shot Tower Gallery and Roy G. Biv Gallery (OH), Eisentrager-Howard Gallery (NE), Mallin and Charno Galleries (MO) and LaLaLand Gallery (AR), among others. Their research has been presented nationally and internationally at the Foundations Art Theory and Education Conference (2023), International Conference on the Image at The University of Texas at Austin (2022) and the International Conference on the Arts in Society at The University of Western Australia (2021). They are a recipient of a Juror’s Choice Award in Regular Style, Online MFA Exhibition (MT, 2018), The Ohio State University’s Livable Futures Creative Project Grant (2019), and an Arts and Humanities Graduate Research Small Grant (2020).
For inquiries contact the artists directly:
https://maggiechambersstudio.com/
https://maggiechambersstudio.com/