Eliza Au

Eliza Au

aueliza82@yahoo.com |  www.elizaau.com

Artist Statement:

Eliza Au is originally from Vancouver, B.C. in Canada. She received her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.  Artist residencies she has attended include Greenwich House Pottery (NYC, NY), The Museum of Contemporary Craft (Portland, OR), and the Corning Museum of Glass (Corning, NY).  She has taught in Canada, United States and internationally at various institutions including the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, the Alberta College of Art and Design, Monmouth College, The University of Iowa and the Alfred-CAFA (Central Academy of Fine Arts) Program in Beijing, China. Au is currently an Assistant Professor of Ceramics at the University of North Texas.

 My work explores the search for solitude. Within the many facets of life we experience a chaos of the mind, which we seemingly cannot escape. I am interested in the human need for peace of mind and what physical, ornamental forms this takes. I create forms that act as lines in space and patterns which mirror and replicate each other, seemingly in a dance of artificial mitosis. Working digitally in CAD (computer aided design) affects how I create and view artwork. The liminal space between complexity and order allows room for play and discovery through the rules of algorithms and parametric design. The digital interface has its own inherent surfaces and textures such as the wireframe, pixels and meshes which we experience visually. The planning and production process work in sync with each other, through line drawings in CAD which are engraved in wood and eventually cast in clay. I am interested in bringing the wireframe surface into the physical world through the processes of craft, such as plaster mold making and press molding clay.