After Eureka, What?
Kedrick McKenzie, MFA 2023, Ceramics
My work originates from the act of questioning my assumptions. From that starting point. The inaccuracies and inconsistencies I see in myself, and my country become sources of investigation and inspiration. I combine craft traditions with ephemeral materials to challenge the slippery and subjective ways that stories are told. Out of that process I create work that suggests new narratives about place, identity, and history.
Installation View, 2023, inkjet print, unfired clay, salvaged wood, gelatin, gold spray paint, earthenware pitcher, ceramic. Photo credit: Neighboring States
Installation View, 2023, inkjet print, unfired clay, salvaged wood, gelatin, gold spray paint, earthenware pitcher, ceramic. Photo credit: Neighboring States
Installation View, 2023, inkjet print, unfired clay. Photo credit: Neighboring States
“Perpetual Frontier”, 2023, watercolor on receipt paper, shopping basket, vinyl floor tiles, 13”x24”x24” (HxWxD) Photo credit: Neighboring States.
Eureka’s Flow – Progress is a Pitcher Already Filled, 2023, unfired clay, salvaged wood, mirrored glass, acrylic, 60”x36”x84” (HxWxD) Photo credit: Neighboring States.
Installation View, 2023, gelatin, gold spray paint, shopping basket, vinyl floor tiles, unfired clay, salvaged wood, mirrored glass, acrylic, watercolor on receipt paper, Photo credit: Neighboring States
Portable Frontier, 2023, gelatin, gold spray paint, shopping basket, vinyl floor tiles, 13”x24”x24” (HxWxD) Photo credit: Neighboring States.
Golden Glow, 2023, gelatin, unfired clay, ceramic, gold spray paint, earthenware pitcher, salvaged wood, 10”x10”x40” (HxWxD) Photo credit: Neighboring States.
Kedrick McKenzie
Instagram: @Kedrick_McK
Growing up on the West Coast where, as Joan Didion puts it, “boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension,” Kedrick McKenzie’s work is an inquiry of what lies underneath layers and layers of frontiers. By combining quotidian craft practices with ephemeral materials, he challenges the slippery and subjective ways that histories are told. His practice revolves around the uneasy combination of the care and individuality imbedded in craft traditions and the extractive practices and consumer culture that built his homeland. The result is a research led practice that suggests new stories about place, identity, and history.