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Sculptor Heather Ramsdale explores travel, time with new exhibit

Works by sculptor Heather Ramsdale evoke feelings about the passage of mind and body through space, emotions and time in her exhibit, “Slide Out of View,” held July 28 through Sept. 9 in the Lycoming College Art Gallery, 25 W. Fourth St.

A reception will be held 5-9 p.m. Sept. 8, with a talk by the artist at 5:30 p.m.

Minimal in presentation, Ramsdale’s sculptures bring into question a new environment suggestive of transit and time, that beckon viewers to locate themselves within both. At moments, her works arouse curiosity and suggest personas, both humorous and lonely, as the audience explores their form and how they relate to one another.

As a young person, Ramsdale was creative and filled sketchbooks with drawings, but the thought of going to art school never occurred to her.

“I always thought art school was for someone with extraordinary talent beyond what I considered myself to have, so I started college as a biology major,” she said. “This was short-lived, and I eventually took an art class and that was it — I immediately fell into it for good.”

The creative problem-solving in foundation coursework made sense to her, and she appreciated the aesthetics of design, something her undergraduate professors instilled in her.

“Sculpture became a focus of mine because I enjoyed the tangible making aspect of it, the control over materials, and that I could register the illusion or absurdity of an idea in real form,” she said. “Like many artists, ideas in my studio are often informed by the way I learned to navigate the world when I was young. I don’t have siblings, so I figured a lot of things out on my own, but I always questioned everything along the way.”

Ramsdale earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. She received an undergraduate degree in studio art from SUNY Cortland and studied at Goldsmiths College in London. She is a full-time faculty member at Kutztown University where she teaches sculpture.

The format Ramsdale uses in her work often changes based on what she is thinking about in the studio. She considers herself to be an object-maker rather than a sculptor.

“As soon as people hear sculptor, they assume I work in stone or clay, and maybe I will at some point,” she said. “But I like to use a variety of materials to explore form and ideas. Usually, it is the combination of an idea and logistics that drives the specific format.”

An example of this is a recently completed artist residency Ramsdale did in Almeria, Spain. The lack of facilities that she is accustomed to brought about new ways of exploring form, and she used only paper and some found materials to make a series of large scale sculptures during her stay.

“In the past, I have worked with steel, wood, plaster, fabric, light and found objects to make free-standing sculpture, wall sculpture, and installation based work,” she said. “Sometimes I build forms entirely myself, and other times I will assemble a combination of built forms with found or collected objects. I get bored if I stay with one medium too long and will look for something else to trigger ideas.”

All of Ramsdale’s work in the exhibition is new and has not been shown before. In fact, it’s so new that it can be a challenge to interpret even for Ramsdale herself.

“Many of the objects are assemblage style sculptures which are combinations of carefully selected accent furniture, rough sawn wood, plywood shapes and paint,” she said. “I typically make sculptures that are void of color because I’ve often felt that an engaging form that has presence doesn’t need it.”

However, in an attempt to move forward in the studio, Ramsdale said she is exploring the use of color for this exhibition.

“There is a direct focus on the formal qualities of each sculpture but there is also a looming conversation about design, interiors, and the relationship between humans and the objects they surround themselves with as identify markers,” she said. “Some of the sculptures are purposefully stuck between being serious and poking fun at the importance or significance that I sometimes place on objects.”

Ramsdale was nominated for a Terra Foundation for American Art Award and an Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award from the International Sculpture Center.

Subsequently, she was the recipient of two Pollock-Krasner Foundation fellowships for residencies in upstate New York. Recent shows include a group exhibition at Savery Gallery in Philadelphia and a solo exhibition at The Gallery at Delaware County Community College. She recently completed a residency at Joya: arte + ecologia, an arts-led field research center, in Andalucia, Spain.

For Ramsdale, creating art is an ongoing process of asking challenging questions and seeking the answers to problems she’s created for herself.

“The feeling of getting closer to something with every sculpture, drawing, or exploration is unique and can’t easily be replaced,” she said. “That particular feeling is what motivates me to continue being an artist. All I can hope for is that people are intrigued by the sculptures because they seem both familiar and peculiar, and that somehow the dichotomy makes sense.”

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