Curatorial Statement
Exhibition Posted Online: Monday, July 6, 2020 by 10 am MT
Victoria Christen is a full-time studio potter who received her MFA from the University of Minnesota and was a resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation. She has given many workshops across the United States and currently teaches ceramics classes at the University of Portland. Victoria has also received many grants and awards, including an NEA Regional Visual Arts Fellowship Award, two Minnesota Arts Board Grants, a blue ribbon at the Minnesota State Fair, and a Great Lakes Colleges Association/ Associated Colleges of the Midwest travel grant to Japan.
I have been influenced by a variety of factors, including my family traditions and my physical environment. I come from a tradition of seamstresses. As a young girl, my grandmother designed and sewed clothing for families at neighboring homesteads. My grandmother’s skills passed to my mother, who sewed all our family clothes, and then to myself. As a ceramic artist, my process is not so different than that of my mother and grandmother. Like them, I transform my ideas into patterns cutting, folding, and joining various pieces to create a physical object.
The Badlands of Eastern Montana where I grew up have also influenced me as an artist. The landforms in Makoshika State Park near my home are rugged yet delicate; full of unique shapes and colors that are ever changing with the passing sun, clouds, and season. It has influenced my love of color and of dramatic form.
-Victoria Christen