Gratia Brown

The oldest known fragment of ceramic is a small thing, roughly triangular, a yellow brown dust color - unassuming. This fragment holds many marks: on one side along the rim there are decorative marks - dots in a line perhaps made by impressing a stick into the wet clay- and the unmistakable blackened surface from fire. The other side shows us the fingerprints and pinching texture of the artist coaxing shape and function from a mound of clay. Fragments represent to me these hidden narratives that connect us to events and people that are no less important because of their anonymity. Fragments are cropped from a resolved place and form that hints at an original object’s function and the events that led to fragmentation. Fragments become a talisman binding the viewer to unknown people, intentions, and events. My work celebrates the characteristics of the fragment - mobile, poetic, irregular, unstable, and precarious in their lack of resolution.
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