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Biography
Virginia Scotchie is a ceramic artist and area head of ceramics at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina. She holds a B.F.A. in ceramics from UNC-Chapel Hill and in 1985 completed her Master of Fine Arts at Alfred University in New York.
Virginia exhibits her work extensively throughout the United States and abroad, and has received numerous awards including the Sydney Meyer Fund International Ceramics Premiere Award from the Shepparton Museum in Victoria, Australia. She has lectured internationally on her work and been an Artist in Residence in Taiwan, Italy, Australia and the Netherlands. Her clay forms reside in many public and private collections and reviews about her work appear in prestigious ceramic publications. Artist Statement
The idea of taking from one object and connecting it to another through the dissection of parts and pieces is a foundation of my recent work in ceramic sculpture. Combined with this is my interest in the relation of whole forms to that of fragments. Exploration in the studio is and on-going visual investigation of man-made and natural objects. Usually these consist of small things; ordinary in many ways, but possessing and odd quirkiness that pulls me to them. In some cases I do not know the objects particular purpose, function or where it may have originated. I feel this lack of knowledge allows me to see the object in a clearer light. In some of the pieces I have abstracted from personal objects that have been given to me or passed on to me from a family member. Usually they are things that have no monetary value. An old pipe of my fathers, a funnel from my mother’s kitchen an old bulb from the family Christmas tree. A recent object that falls into category is a handmade wooden tool that was fashioned by my Italian grandfather to plant his garden. Slender and pointed with a stump of a side handle this small tool fit the hand of my grandfather and served him well. For me it not only holds visual intrigue but also a connection to my memory of him and the things he loved. The worn, crusty surfaces on many of the pieces are created to give a sense of how time acts to make and unmake a form. This process can be seen in both natural and manmade objects. I do not wish for this work to be named or labeled, rather, it is my intention that through the borrowing and reformation of objects the work might trigger one to look closer and find beauty and intrigue in the humble, ordinary and familiar objects that surround us. In the past five years I have continued my investigation of ceramic sculpture with a desire and drive to push into new territories of creative research. I have created public art commission in Taiwan at the famous ceramic museum, Yingee Ceramic Museum in Taipei. Public artwork has also been commissioned in Charlotte North Carolina for the corporate Trinity Building in downtown Charlotte next to the Mint Museum of Art. My work has been exhibited across the country in both invitational and group exhibitions. Internationally I have shown in France, Australia, Taiwan and China in the past five years. I have recently begun work on a collaborative project, which was partially supported by the Department of Art and the USC Arts Institute called the Crucible Project. Five internationally recognized artists and myself work together once a semester to create new work that focus on the crucible as a premise. This work will begin a national tour in 2012 starting at he Columbia Museum of Art. Overall I feel the past five years have been very successful in my creative research and with the new works in public art and collaborative efforts I am reaching out in new directions as an artist in the ceramic arts. For Virginia Scotchie's Resume, click below.
 | © Virginia Scotchie 2012 | virginiascotchie@hotmail.com | |
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