Artist Katharine Morling creates life-sized whimsical sculptures that are filled with a playful energy. Upon first glance, the pieces look as if they are constructed from paper. However, in reality, Morling uses ceramics as the medium to give unique life to a variety of animals and inanimate objects.
To begin, the artist fills her sketchbooks with rough ideas and uses those drawings as the inspiration for her next piece. Then, with hand building techniques, she molds and shapes the details out of clay, stating that “the idea develops like a sketch in front of you.”
Once a piece is complete, Morling outlines the edges and details with black ink. As a result, the sculptures appear to be drawings that have taken on three-dimensional form. “Each piece, on the surface, an inanimate object, has been given layers of emotion and embedded with stories, which are open for interpretation in the viewer’s mind,” explains the artist.
