Rebecca Ramsey

My current project centres around the concept of energy and its relationship to objects, materials and mining. Ceramic practice utilizes many of the same materials employed in energy production such as copper, lithium, iron, magnesium, quartz. I have been exploring the histories and transformations of these minerals in my studio practice as a way of reconsidering the agency of these materials and our relationship to them. I am fascinated how these materials express themselves in completely different ways in the presence of heat, pressure and proximity. The transformative capacity of minerals can create material confusion where a bubbly, soft surface is prickly to the touch or a variegated copper glaze on an iron clay body looks like a rusty metal pipe. In these transformational states one thing becomes another and recognizable objects are infused with ambiguity. The perceptual movement between familiar and strange echoes the movement of energy produced from these minerals in various states.

Rebecca Ramsey is a Canadian artist based in Montreal. She completed a BFA at Emily Carr University in 2017. She has worked as a ceramics technician (St. Georges Secondary School) and as an instructor at art centres such as the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts (Burnaby, BC,) and Place Des Arts (Coquitlam, BC). She attended Guldagergaard’s Project Network residency (Denmark) and has also been an artist-in-residence at Medalta (Medicine Hat) and the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. She is grateful for receiving support from Concordia’s fellowship program as well as the BC Arts Council.