Rebecca Hutchinson: Affinity
April 5 – June 23, 2013
Over the course of four days, working onsite with a team of assistants and museum staff, Massachusetts based installation artist and professor of Ceramics, Rebecca Hutchinson, created a new version of her ongoing Accommodation series, which she titles Affinity.
This site-specific project uses porcelain paperclay and handmade paper, manipulated into leaf and bloom like forms that she then “adobes” to stripped and sanded limbs. With these natural materials, she constructed an environment that embraces qualities of craft, developmental theory, and observation of plant growth and ecosystem dynamics. This installation is delicate and bloom inspired, referencing the beauty and functionality of our ever changing fragile world.
REBECCA HUTCHINSON
Rebecca Hutchinson received her MFA from the University of Georgia (Athens) and her BFA from Berea College. An award-winning sculptor, she was one of 12 recipients of the 2015 “Women to Watch” award from the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. A dedicated educator of over 20 years, she currently serves as full professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth teaching undergraduate and graduate ceramics.
Hutchinson’s sculptural work is informed by observations of the natural world, drawing inspiration from what she sees as its resilience and resourcefulness. Ranging in scale from site-installation museum projects to gallery sculpture, the work is a profusion of color harmonies, floral textures and absorbing detail. Found embedded in her work are locally sourced materials—native and natural as well as industrial and domestic cast-offs. The work is attentive to the emerging concerns of the Anthropocene: sustainability as an ethos, hybridity as a strategy, and growth as a set of negotiations. Her current work explores the theme of navigating boundaries both conceptually and aesthetically.
