Courtney McCall

I create sculptures made from steel, wood, and fibers that are an exploration of fantastical abstracted flora and fauna. I construct idealized utopias with my forms that generate a whimsical and welcoming space for emotional and physical regeneration. My fibers' softness, woods' smoothness, and metals' controlled bends hold tactile and comforting notions, thus inciting viewer interaction. Like fantasy and speculative fiction, my sculptural work suggests an alternative site for exploring new possibilities and the desire for self-discovery and adventure. Rather than maintaining fidelity to my nature observations, I abstract my objects to create curiosity about what they may resemble- an experience I feel when finding plants I have never seen before.

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Biomorphism captivates me for its characteristics of irregular, ambiguous, and organic forms that suggest living beings. The lack of geometry and hard edges creates more approachability. Moreso, the curvatures of biomorphic shapes connotate calming and biological bodily responses. This bodily response is crucial to the radical imaginative properties of speculative fiction, the futuristic world-building where one can metabolize their current turmoils and respond to them in reality. With these reflections, one may create new ways of viewing and interacting with their life.

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The artistic processes I use throughout my work can be broken into the overlapping categories of laborious and restorative. This year, I struggled with ongoing fatigue that curtailed my usual production. Through this, I had an opportunity to reflect on the sustainability of my practices and find alternative ways of working. Processes requiring extensive physical effort, like bending steel and carving wood with power tools, are laborious. In contrast, methods capable of completing while sitting, like fiber-based crocheting and wrapping canvas techniques, are restorative. Through these two artist process categories, I create my abstract environments.