Isys Hennigar Named 2021 Emerging Artist by Ceramics Monthly

The School of Art is pleased to share that MFA Candidate Isys Hennigar has been selected as a 2021 Emerging Artist by Ceramics Monthly. 

This year more than 560 artists from around the world submitted work to the Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artist competition. Hennigar was one of the 23 artists selected as this year’s finalists. 

“The finalists weave together skillful material handling, individualized approaches, and focused ideas. The artists’ functional, sculptural, and interactive objects build on and expand existing traditions, as well as strike out and forge new paths. Their ceramics express personal stories, emotions, hopes, ideas, and a desire to connect with others through dialog and interaction.

– Eds.” 

Read Isys Hennigar’s full interview here.

Through ceramic-based sculpture, Hennigar’s work considers the complex relationships between humans and other organisms. She is interested in the many capacities in which we engage with and use other forms of life (as commodities, companions, food, fuel, decoration, labor, entertainment, trophies, and symbols), the histories of these often indistinct relationships, and the narratives we use to structure our place among living things. The work she makes is informed and compelled by environmental concern, the history of biological collection and study, representation of the natural world in art, myth, and literature, and my own experience growing up in the rural South.