Eric Serritella

Artist’s Statement:

Art is an arena for connection, resonance and reverberation. I create each sculpture as a conduit to emotion through inquiry, recognition and familiarity.

Through my trompe l’oeil ceramic works I challenge the viewer with both the nature of the material and the messages within. Forms are completely hand-built and hand-carved with hyper-realistic textures transformed into charred and weathered wood, and birch trees—the angels of the forest.

Through aging and decay, I explore how nature maintains its splendors with tenacity and triumphs of existence, despite the disregard we humans show her. I appreciate how ceramic mirrors the environment’s fragility and durability—easily damaged if disrespected and yet invincible in its inherent beauty and longevity.

Each piece I create is a relationship—the story of shared discovery. The clay and I make the journey together through the tension of disagreement and the harmony of accord. The final form—the result of our conversation—has a life all its own.

Each organic creation fosters awareness and influences viewer behavior toward the environment. Through this consciousness, viewers acquire new appreciations and ways of seeing, and can thus choose to walk with softer steps.