Erik Wilhelmsen

Bio:

Erik Wilhelmsen grew up in New Hampshire. He became interested in pottery his junior year of high school while taking a ceramic course at the New Hampshire Art Institute. In 2001, he enrolled at Maine College of Art further exploring ceramics as well as other mediums, art theory and history. After graduating in 2005 with a BFA in ceramics, he spent the next two years doing production pottery. These two years, Erik says, "were not always fun, production is real labor and while it's not your designs, it's not art, but it taught me discipline, proficiency and a variety of other invaluable lessons."

Statement:

A line drawn, a texture made, or a volume formed in clay allows me to express what I cannot with words. I'm interested in the poetry art can create: a story through what is not all spelled out, but what makes references. My work which is most often functional but sometimes sculptural always has a relationship to nature. Not only forms, textures, and colors found in nature, but the struggles and perseverance that abstractly draw ties to ourselves. A weathered stone, an old tree, a decomposing leaf, these types of objects and events in nature metaphorically can relate to us.