Elizabeth N Jordan

Visual connections to the earth, the spirituality of nature and the beauty and grimness of the world are the themes within my work. With intuition as a guide, my process of making sculpture combines seemingly unrelated resources to seek out shapes and build associations. Materials that are difficult, rough and unrelated are used to produce organic objects that are sometimes recognizable and often abstract. They imitate everything from artifacts to animals, and can be symbolic, humorous or mysterious. Seen in circumspect, they define a vocabulary consisting of animals, houses, ladders, crosses, bird’s nests, wings, body parts, organs, bones, guitars, towers, tools, books, arrows, spears and relics. Individual pieces interact to tell a variety of narratives, and limitless possibilities exist by combining old and new pieces. The most recent works delve deeper into my relationship with birds, animals and the ocean, and investigate the parameters of life. Are human beings the only creatures with souls, or is the definition of soul much broader than anyone can know? My work exists between the lines of whimsical parody and the finality of loss.