As It Ticks Forward, We Look Back
BFA Senior Solo Exhibition - Michigan State University
by Katie Shotwell
Artist Statement
My work focuses on the interactions and perspectives of non-human creatures that we share this planet with. I’ve always found animals a more interesting subject matter than humans which has always reflected in my artwork. The natural world, which is often overlooked, is filled to the brim with creatures and life that exist outside of the normal, human industrialized work. The different species and behaviors make up a complex social system that makes up their world. At times it both interweaves with humans or exists outside of our normal habitats. My work explores these worlds by focusing on those animals and the way they move through their lives.
In As It Ticks Forward, We Look Back the viewer will follow a single character through multiple series of artworks that explore isolation, the progress of time, and memory. Time, despite what it may sometimes seem, always moves forward. We, who are subservient to its passage, must always move forward with it. As we do, circumstances change no matter if we are human or animal or plant. As all life must, we adapt and move forward, the past nothing more than an echo behind us.
Each series, and subsequently each artwork, is a reflection of that. How time changes our lives, changes how we perceive the past, and informs us of the future. That we change and grow as the flow of time ticks forward.
All of us have stories. This work is only one small story in an infinite sea the cascades throughout the world around us.
Image Gallery
