Cidney Owen

Fish Bowls R-I-G

Ceramics, 2024

6 x 6 x 3in

$75 Each

Artist Statement:     

My work lies at the cornerstones of fantasy and anemoia, validated by labor and material. I break the tension between reality and fiction; allowing both to manifest within the physical realm. When I’m not creating I write and dream. I record poetry of dream-like lands with castles and Knights and envision myself in this realm as these roles; farmer, scribe, jester, and Knight. The work I do is dedicated to the Knight 6 feet under in a mass grave. I appropriate his clothes, land, voice, and life. I fit the shape of him in my Midwestern-Southern world. At the same time, he appropriates me. I slowly become less and less my own, as he becomes more of me—colliding faster than I ever expected. My labor is conducted through ancestral roles. I gather raw materials as the farmer and transform them into paper, ceramics, and milled lumber. As the scribe, I write my poetry late into the night with walnut ink. Finally, as the jester, I orchestrate experiences and playfully obstruct the more intimate aspects of my writing and work from the viewer; forcing them to labor through playful interactions to understand the work. These roles follow the code of creation set by the Knight. In these roles, I will work the rest of my life knee-deep in clay, metal, plaster, ink, digital media, fiction, and language, so that in 623 years, they might finally spark their magic as the medieval era does now.

Follow Cidney Owen on Instagram: @owsterowen 

View More on Cidney Owen on their website: cidneyowen.com