Jeff Forster, Texas Sculpture Group

From Kingwood, Texas

Artist Statement:

Growing up in rural Minnesota offered me plentiful opportunity to explore the bucolic terrain.  Often my wanderings brought me to piles of cast off agricultural equipment and dilapidated farm structures that dotted the landscape.  As a child I enjoyed speculating what these objects and structures might have been used for and frequently I contemplated the people who had come before me that might have used them.  

Upon discovering ceramics I was immediately drawn to its rich history.  Objects that document, in many cases, cultures who are now completely extinct.  By using Styrofoam packing materials and other cast off items as molds I look to create abstract objects that speak directly to current culture an dhow it functions.  Often forms are repeated further reinforcing our mass-produce and throw away society.  The pieces are imbued with a sense of age as not only a nod to the idea of the artifact but to question what we as a civilization are leaving behind for future generations to find.

Artist Biography:

Currently the Ceramics Chair at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Glassell School of Art, Jeff Forster has participated in exhibitions both nationally and internationally.  His work has won awards in a number of these exhibitions including a Juror’s Choice Award in “Ceramic Object/Conceptual Material” and the Luis Jimenez Award for First Place in the “Sculpture on Campus Exhibition” at Southern Illinois University.  Additionally, Jeff was awarded the Helen Drutt Studio Fellowship in conjunction with his residency at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.  Besides this residency, Jeff has completed residencies at Lone Star College-North Harris and the Armory Arts Center in West Palm Beach, Florida.