Samantha Wickman
(She/Her)
Artist Statement:
Drawing heavily from personal experience, my sculptural work is a sustained meditation on what happens to people when they fall from the realm of the living into the kingdom of the sick by way of chronic pain and illness. Pain is a destructive, fiendish monster that threatens to and often succeeds in annihilating identity. It shatters the relationship between the body and soul; at worst, it shifts the balance until a person becomes nothing more than a lump of twisted flesh. Lacking means of ascent, the shadow beings I depict are floating, unhinged from the earthly world: desperately creating an existence from the flotsam and jetsam of ruin and disease, fashioning meaning and subsistence from whatever remnants they can find. They exist, the work exists, I exist, with all their flaws - proof that life in the kingdom of the sick, hidden in the shadows of an ableist society, exists - and that both beauty and meaning thrive amidst the chaos.
Ouroboros: Persist, 2019
Porcelain, underglaze, gold luster, mixed media
Alt Text: Porcelain figurine depicting a woman with a snake coming out of her abdomen. The snake has wrapped itself around her neck and is eating its tail, which is coming out of the woman's lower back. The woman is struggling to pull the snake off her neck; her face turns red as she begins to suffocate. Both the woman and the snake are crying. The woman has a gold lustered halo. The sculpture is finished with drippy black, red, and chartreuse underglaze, and red resin.
NFS
Alt Text: Porcelain figurine depicting a woman with a snake coming out of her abdomen. The snake has wrapped itself around her neck and is eating its tail, which is coming out of the woman's lower back. The woman is struggling to pull the snake off her neck; her face turns red as she begins to suffocate. Both the woman and the snake are crying. The woman has a gold lustered halo. The sculpture is finished with drippy black, red, and chartreuse underglaze, and red resin. This image shows the back of the sculpture, with particular focus on the snake’s head and tail, which is coming out of a wound on the woman’s lower back. The snake’s fangs (made of broken glass) are visible.
About Samantha Wickman
Samantha Wickman grew up in Massachusetts. She studied ceramics and English literature at Connecticut College and graduated with a BA in 2008. She also spent time abroad studying ceramics at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland and received a Masters in library science from Simmons College in 2013. After finishing her BA, she moved to the Boston area and began taking classes and workshops at Mudflat Studio in Somerville. Samantha has been an active member of the Mudflat community, participating in group shows and sales throughout the year. She has recently started showing her sculptural work in various group shows across the country.