Emily Borchers, Author at Montalvo Arts Center • Page 2 of 3

Child on High, 2025

Featured in When the World is Beautifully Strange Niki Ford (b. 1974)Child on High, 2025Stoneware, mason stain, underglaze, glaze,tung oil, epoxy, spar varnish, rebar and concrete base47 in. x 16 in. x 16 in.Courtesy of the artistPhoto by Ernest Gibson Niki Ford, a Los Angeles-based artist, befriends the otherworldly through their richly pigmented and hyper-tactile stoneware sculptures. During the building process, Ford works intuitively, as if receiving a kind of download – watching the form emerge and unfold, rather than consciously constructing it. This quiet exchange between artist and object gives rise to the final form, allowing motifs, textures, colors, and…

the stone in your mouth, 2024

Featured in When the World is Beautifully Strange Kristiana Chan 莊禮恩 (b. 1993)the stone in your mouth (en/snarled), 2024Hand-built stoneware, crocheted chain, foraged barnacle, acrylic tubingCourtesy of the artistPhoto by Paul Gallo The intertidal zone is a landscape marked by constant and extreme change, whose inhabitants have uniquely adapted to not only withstand, but thrive in such conditions. Chan considers histories of oceanic extraction and our relationship to living resources, believing that the ocean’s intertidal organisms are oracles which guide our understanding of what longevity, survival, and endurance can look like. What wisdom, memories, and technologies are held within…

AGNIJA, Born of Fire, 2023

Featured in When the World is Beautifully Strange Ashwini Bhat (b. 1980)AGNIJA, Born of Fire, 2023Glazed ceramic84 x 36 x 16 in.Collection of Starworks, NCPhoto by Chris Gallaway Inspired by the cathedral-like termite mounds frequently seen throughout Southern India, artist Ashwini Bhat was invited to create this hybrid, biomorphic sculpture using local wild clay as a part of Firefest 2023 at Starworks, in North Carolina. To this day in Southern India, the termite mounds, which have chimney-like structures resembling ancient pottery kilns, are worshipped as the dwellings of the serpent deities. In this process, the termite mounds themselves become the…

You Can’t Eat Art

The new podcast series was created with support provided by the George and Judy Marcus Family Foundation, the Jo and Barry Ariko Fund for Artistic Programs, and Sally Lucas. You Can’t Eat Art is a provocative podcast series addressing the age-old question: What’s the value of art? Inspired by a skeptic who claimed that art serves no practical purpose, host Clara Kamunde, Marcus Curatorial Fellow, sits down with artists at the Lucas Artists Program to explore the impact of making art. In this monthly series, Clara invites you to listen in as she engages in candid conversations with working artists representing…

Montalvo Announces 2024 International Music and Composition Fellowships

Montalvo Arts Center’s Sally and Don Lucas Artists Program is proud to announce its first international and national fellowship awards made since the Covid pandemic. Twenty-five musician/composers of exceptional talent from across the U.S. and the world were recently awarded a three-month fellowship in the Lucas Artists Residency Program. This distinguished group includes individuals working in all genres of music including classical, jazz, folk, hip-hop, electronic, experimental, and sound art. These newly selected Fellows were born or reside in the following countries: the United States and Puerto Rico, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Syria. Every…

Additional works by Marie Watt

Future Dreaming, the 2024 Marcus exhibition, imagines futures that are influenced by Indigenous knowledge and wisdom, impacting our existing modes of living, thinking, relating and convening to make way for a more equitable and sustainable existence for all beings. In this gallery, Marie Watt, a member of the Turtle Clan of Seneca Nation (Haudenosaunee) with German-Scot ancestry, bends space and time in service of encouraging new perspectives based on the seven principles of Indigenous storywork: respect, responsibility, reciprocity, reverence, holism, interrelatedness, and synergy. Printmaking has been an integral part of Watt’s practice for over 30 years, influencing her sculptural work…

Skywalker/Skyscraper: Forest

Reclaimed blankets, reclaimed cedar, steel I-beamDimensions variableCourtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery Skywalker/Skyscraper: Forest (2021), was inspired by Marie Watt’s move to Brooklyn, and her discovery that the border of Cobble Hill and Gowanus (the locations of her home and studio, respectively) was "where Iroquois ironworkers and their families settled in the 1950s, when most of Manhattan's skyscrapers were being built." Watt remarks, “These Iroquois were called ‘skywalkers’ due to their ability to work on the high steel without safety harnesses.” Her use of blankets is an ode to her Indigenous heritage, as she notes that “in Indigenous…

Chords to Other Chords (First Teacher)

Neon, aluminum, steel34.5 x 300.75 x 9.5 inFabricated by Lite Brite Neon Studio, Kingston, NYCourtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark GalleryPhoto by Kevin McConnell Chords to Other Chords (First Teacher) (2022) is a monumental neon sculpture consisting of the boldly stitched words, TURTLE ISLAND, which artist Marie Watt places in unexpected sites as an act of colonial resistance. Acknowledging the various meanings and origin stories of Turtle Island across Indigenous communities, Watt questions, “What does it mean to say a pair of words when you don’t know their origin?” The neon sign is meant to “catch people off guard…

Pulse

Acrylic mirror, plexiglass90.5 x 90.5 x 88.5 inCourtesy of the artistPhoto by David Zarate Pulse (2024) is a large-scale, abstract depiction of an essential energy feedback loop within our ecosystem. The interconnected circles devour the light, and then project the cast light out through color and beam reflections, much in like our natural energy systems. In nature, a pulse is the palpitation or wave through which energy is circulated—acting as a connection through vibrations in sound, electric currents, light, water or any element. This work was created with the support of the 2024 Inaugural Lucas Artists Program Marcus Commissioning Prize. This…

Circuitree

Gold acrylic mirror, plywoodDimensions variableCourtesy of the artistPhoto by David Zarate Circuitree (2024), a sculptural forest with patterned mirrored trunks and neon plexi foliage, invites viewers to experience themselves as part of nature, not apart from it. This installation emphasizes the interconnectivity between humans and the earth. As the plexi and mirrors commune with light, viewers may see themselves reflected within the trees and plants. Each one is unique in form. The patterns on the trunks are based on cuneiform symbols some of the most ancient and minimal shapes known to be the earliest writing system for humans; i.e. the…

Author: Emily Borchers