by Linda Sormin

STREAM

Linda Sormin | AUG 2023 | Issue 26

Clay streams above and veers past, willing me to compromise, to give ground. I roll and pinch the thing into place; I collect and lay offerings at its feet. This architecture melts and leans, hoards objects in its folds. Forms lurch, dare you to approach, space collapses with the brush of a hand.

Nothing is thrown away — this immigrant lives in fear of waste. Old yoghurt starts a new batch. Images glitch and flow. What is worth risking for things to get juicy, rare, ripe? What might be discovered on the verge of things going bad?

Trained in traditional methods of clay forming, I strive to decolonize ceramics by disrupting constructs of material “fluency” and subverting “correct” approaches. Born in Bangkok, I moved to Canada with my Indonesian/Chinese family. I explore upheaval, migration and transformation through embodied expressions of the diasporic experience.

A recent addition to my sculpture is watercolor paintings on paper. I cut, following the forms in the brushwork, then bend, fold and integrate the paper and found objects into the ceramics. This intricate work reflects traditional craft practices I learned in Thailand and Laos. Mounds of fragrant material — orchids, jasmine blossoms, string and gold leaf — surround me as I make things shaped by the complexity and chaos of everyday life.

In Stream, metal scaffolding reaches up two stories and intertwines with hand-built raw clay, glazed and fired ceramic forms, scrap metal, part of a spiral staircase, charcoal drawings, and hand-cut watercolor paintings. The network also holds 12 video screens offering a gush of abstract and familiar imagery moving like the water that is seen, heard and implied throughout.

Linda Sormin explores fragility, upheaval, migration, survival and change through sculpture and site-responsive installations. She was a 2021 and 2023 participant at European Ceramic Workcentre in the Netherlands, creating new work for three exhibitions: Ceramics in the Expanded Field: Sculpture, Performance and the Possibilities of Clay at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, USA (October 16, 2021 - April 2, 2023), No Boundaries at Messums, London, UK, a solo exhibition at Messums, Wiltshire (March 5 – May 1, 2022), and a two-person exhibition at Peach Corner Gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark (September 29 – November 5, 2022).
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Sormin lives and works in New York City, and is an Associate Professor of Studio Art at New York University. She has taught ceramics at Emily Carr University, Rhode Island School of Design, Sheridan College and Alfred University. Born in Bangkok, Thailand, Sormin moved to Canada with her family at the age of five. She has a BA in English Literature and worked in community development for four years in Thailand and Laos. She received degrees from Andrews University (BA, English Literature, 1993), Sheridan College (Diploma, Craft and Design, 2001) and Alfred University (MFA, Ceramic Art, 2003). Sormin’s work is included in private and public collections including the permanent collections of the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC, USA), Gardiner Museum (Toronto, ON, Canada), CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art (Middelfart, Denmark), Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse, NY, USA), Victoria & Albert Museum (London, UK), Arizona State University Museum, (Tempe, AZ, USA), World Ceramic Exposition (Gyeonggi Province, Korea), and Schein-Joseph Museum of Ceramic Art (Alfred, NY, USA).

The artist acknowledges the support of Canada Council for the Arts, New York University and Patricia Sweetow Gallery.