by Featured Artist: Rosie Brand

Folk

Rosie Brand | Aug 2022 | Issue 17

My work spins a cognitive web of interdimensional poetics. It is a practice of sculptural world building that stems out of my healing process after the death of my mother in 2019.

In the aftermath of this loss, I seek to root myself in the living world around me, exploring the local landscape, slowly learning the names of the plants I see. I record my sense of these places with drawings. I forage for plant-forms, for the negative space between leaf and branch, for the elusive light-creatures living in the shade of a canopy. I’m looking for presence, looking to the sentience of the more-than-human. Back in my studio, The drawings mingle with my thoughts and dreams, abstracting into their own language. Clay tells the story. The ceramic sculptures proliferate wildly, spiraling toward the magical. I take refuge in the shape-shifting shadows of the work and transform my grief into play.

Rosie Brand is an interdisciplinary artist living on Tongva Land in Los Angeles, CA. She builds sculptural worlds with ceramics, drawing, painting and writing. As an educator, Brand teaches ceramic handbuilding to adults at a local clay studio. Brand facilitates a monthly meeting for a cohort of five artists called Worm School. The group holds conversations that explore intersections between clay, ecology, gardening and craft practices. Born in the UK, Brand earned a BA in Illustration with honors from Brighton University, UK in 2013. She is currently in training to become a certified California naturalist.