Sculpting Emotion
Both Havekost and Ott fashion three-dimensional sculptural objects that are designed for wall installation and that experiment with materials, forms, hues, and textures. Both explore the metaphorical qualities of shapes and substances, and both understand their use of material and form as a register of the human condition, attempting to evoke states such as anxiety, longing, dejection, sadness, and loss.
Havekost, who teaches at Siena Heights University and at Adrian College, both in Adrian, Michigan, holds a B.F.A. in printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design and an M.F.A. in printmaking from the University of New Mexico. Ott, who teaches at Kent State University in Ohio, earned her B.F.A. in painting at the University of North Carolina and her M.F.A. in painting from Kent State.
Both artists have spoken about the intensity in the repetitious handwork that attends their art making. Havekost enjoys the physical relationship inherent in the printmaking process, and in her sculptural work she has similarly established a physical process for working with cloth, thread, beads, wax, and brightly colored candies. Ott seeks to blur the categories of painting and sculpture. Working intuitively, she says, "I pour, brush, slush, stuff, fold, sew, pinch, pull, and peel latex, silicone and rubber and resin, creating specific objects that function as both image and object."
"Materializing Form" runs through November 5. For more information, consult the gallery Web site.