About
Artist Statement
Stemming from a deep dissatisfaction with the conditions of the current world around me and events i’ve experienced, my work centres around the exploration and physical manifestation of the alternate reality I escape to within my mind. The nature of this reality is closely aligned to the thoughts and beliefs I held in my childhood before I had been woken up to all of the horrors that exist in this world and what my presumed role here would be.
Each piece I make is a collage of visual and tactile ties to my childhood that surround me with the immense comfort I felt at this time, influenced by the colours, textures, motifs, and media I engaged with during this period. I attain just as much satisfaction, comfort, and fulfillment through the making and decorating stages of my process as I do from the end results. Each piece I create is an extension of myself; by incorporating play and curiosity into my process I am drawn more and more connected to it, intuitively adding elements at all stages of making, pre and post-firing, I allow myself to exercise complete control over the aesthetic journey and final outcome of the work, only stopping once satisfied. By extending the act of decorating I give myself the time and opportunity to trust my judgement and work instinctively, creating a ritual of my own, selecting what feels right vs wrong in those moments, learning more about myself through each finished work. The careful intention expressed during this stage allows me to merge these two worlds and create work for myself, by myself, inspired by the freedom and safety I felt during my childhood and crave to be able to feel again as an adult.
Bio
Jolie Neeve is an emerging ceramic artist based in Brantford, Ontario. She is currently completing her fourth year in the Bachelors of Craft and Design program at Sheridan College. Jolie works primarily in low-fire maiolica, her work focuses mainly on highly decorated, hand painted functional ware as well as abstract and figurative sculpture. Her surfaces are painted with shapes, symbols, and narrative scenes that explore the alternate reality that she has created in her mind. This hypothetical universe acts as a safe haven for her to escape to when the intolerable realities of her real life become too much to bear and she must dissociate. Her work is littered with callbacks to her childhood, expressed through layers of colours, textures, and motifs that serve as visual and tactile reminders of this time, as a way of seeking the safety, security, and comfort she felt as a child.
