Cat Gunn
My Mother’s Mountains
For my mother, Lida
For my siblings, Siobhan, Morgan, and Gavin
For Siobhan’s children, Scott, Lily, and Tristen
For Morgan’s child, Aoife
For Gavin’s future children
For everyone biracial that grew up feeling disconnected from their heritage
And for everyone who misses their mom
Between the COVID-19 pandemic and moving cross country, I have been thinking about my mother more often. As I began to incorporate ceramics into my studio practice, I found my forms becoming volcanic, cavernous, and mountainous with various glazes melting, oozing, and cascading off my forms. While my work had been a continuous experiment in form, color, and alchemy, it became a place for me to contemplate my mother’s Asian heritage and the disconnect I feel from it. My Mother’s Mountains is an exhibition that addresses how fiction, abstraction, and alchemy work together to manifest missing links of an untold familial history as it relates to my queer, transgender personal history.
Cat Gunn
they/them/their
IG: @mango__hot__sauce
A special thank you to my committee: Monique van Genderen, Anya Gallaccio, Janelle Iglesias, and Kazim Ali.