Hannah Thompsett
Scio, NY
Biography
Hannah Thompsett uses ceramics, paper, photography, and installation to explore ideas of perception and reality. She creates functional and sculptural works, which are intrinsically connected through material exploration and process. They are linked in conception, materialization, and as entity. The functional objects appear on their own or within the context of installations accompanied by other works and space constructions. Thompsett received her BFA from the SUNY New Paltz in 2011 and her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2016. She was the 2016 recipient of the Thayer Fellowship, a 2018 Peripheral Vision Press Publication Fellowship recipient, and exhibits her work nationally. Before graduate school, she was a two-year artist-in-residence at The Flower City Arts Center in Rochester, NY. She currently works as a Ceramic Art Technician at Alfred University and continues her studio practice in Alfred and Scio, NY.
Artist Statement
The forms I create are generated from folded paper. They begin as flat line drawings, which are creased and bent into three dimensions. As I fold, the tension from a singular plane of paper is broken up and transferred into volume. I start to understand what a set of information looks like as both a pattern and as a shape; how slight alterations in the drawing affect its three dimensional rendition. The same set of information is then translated from paper to ceramic through mold making and slip casting. The final object shows evidence of the original drawing and paper form, but also gains new characteristics through its own material presence.
