Kate MacDowell

We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough.  We want something else which can hardly be put into words--to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. – C.S. Lewis. 

This quote opens the artist statement of Kate MacDowell another artist interested in the relationship man has with nature. Her sculptures are beautifully, painstakingly crafted out of porcelain which is both fragile and valuable. The detail in her work can be heartbreaking. Her ceramic pieces are anatomically perfect and the composition begins a subtle but foreboding narrative. Man is guilty not only for the slow erosion of his own species but has perpetrated crimes against every single other species of living being on the planet. MacDowell's sculptures force us to look at our own mortality and suggests it is fundamentally connected to the existence of other creatures. Our actions affect everything whether we choose to acknowledge it or not but looking at MacDowell's sculptures it is hard not to see the tragedy of our selfishness.