Lee Somers (b. 1977)

Reactions exhibition labels for adults and youths for Flower Mountain and White Rock:

Lee Somers constructs “ceramic collages” that are mixed media assemblages that bring together his interests in Chinese landscape traditions, geology, architecture, and the history of ceramics. He finds ceramics to be “the perfect material metaphor for the entwinement of natural and cultural processes… a microcosm, compressing geologic time and the history of civilization into moments.” His landscapes are more “a function of the imagination rather than a factual reality. These dreamlands reference the experience of place as an intersection of natural, cultural and personal histories.”

Hey Kids:

Did you know that porcelain dates back more than 2,000 years to the Eastern Han Dynasty? The fine, white clay found in China was made into cups and other useful pottery, as well as sculptures. When Marco Polo brought it back to Europe, they called it china because of where it came from. Artist Lee Somers suggests this rich history in his assemblages of broken and handmade parts.

Labels by Nancy Weekly, 2021