ABOUT
Sam Mack makes sculpture with ceramics, metal, found objects, and fabricated materials to build a grammar of materials that reference historic and contemporary vessels to disrupt simplistic myths of place in the South and Midwestern United States with trans legibility informed by trans studies and institutional critique. The vessels are built to encourage cracks and rips in the clay, creating a method of mark-making that values surface variation created from the materials’ transition as it changes states from clay to ceramic. The vessels and objects are arranged into still life vignettes of semi-diaristic representative sculpture pulling from ceramic histories and contemporary methods of archival display and exhibition.
in a recent series titled, receptacle series, they used stoneware clay to build formal objects devoid of words, printed symbols, or branding to visualize what transsexual mobility can be across states, cities, and highway rest stops that surveil the body through state-enforced anti-trans legislation regarding bathrooms, access to health care, and employment. The ceramic vessel serves as the location of display to exhibit formal arrangements of otherwise disposable objects and tools which are remade in clay and mounted onto the ceramic vessel. Disposable vessels are reproduced as permanent stone sculptures of receptacles. A piss cup built for longevity. The vessels are adorned with and display disposable artifacts of HRT, transition, effeminate masculinities, and celebrate often excluded histories of transfaggotry. As displayed objects, the vessels oscillate between precarious decorations and weapons, and as admissions of care, compliance, and objectification from the maker, institution, and viewer.
Mack is an artist originally from and currently based in Saint Louis,MO and Cedar Falls, IA . They received their Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art with an emphasis in Ceramics from the University of Missouri and their Master of Fine Art in Studio Art in May 2019 from the University of Arkansas. Their work is formulated through installation, ceramic objects and is centered around the allegorical potential of formally arranged material and objects. Mack has shown nationally and internationally at the JEAE International Arts Center in Jingdezhen, China, and at the Aichi Ceramics Museum in Seto City, Japan, as well as the Clay Studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
