DANA  SENGE

Based in Mancos Colorado, I am a sculptor working mostly in paper clay. My work focuses on hand-built animal forms that are carved to look as if they are made of branches, roots, or grasses. This abstraction brings attention to both the animal and its environment. 

Plant and animal forms are ubiquitous in art, design, and storytelling. My work is an attempt to dig deeper into their stories, their ecology, their systems to connect myself and others to the world outside human construct.  Through the lens of dominant culture in the United States, there is a conceptual barrier between the ‘natural’ and ‘civilized‘ worlds, yet we are all part of one planet, affect it, and are affected by it. Through my work I seek to remind myself and others of the connections, the existing networks. 

My current work is coil built with paper clay then carved to create the texture of branches, grasses, or roots. The surfaces are decorated with terra sigillata, underglazes, and oxides followed by encaustic, matte acrylic paint and other media after firing.