Conner Mckissack | LUX Center for the Arts | Art Gallery, Classes, Summer Camps & Outreach
 

Conner Mckissack

Conner Mckissack

Artist
Profile Location
Atlanta , GA
Biography

Conner Mckissack is a artist/educator living and working in Helsinki, Finland. Raised in South Georgia, Conner earned his BFA from Valdosta State University and his MFA from the University of Florida. After 10 years teaching both adults and children in recreational classrooms, he took a job at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA. In the summer of 2014, Conner packed his belongings and moved with his family to Northern Europe.

 

Artist Statement

My most recent work, completed in the Spring of 2015 at the International Ceramic Research Center in Skælskør, DK, addresses both my interest in utilitarian objects as well as more recent ideas revolving around nostalgia and comfort. Coming face to face with such a foreign culture has been both difficult, educational ,and has forced me to think a lot about my own place in the world.

I've always aimlessly collected old objects but until my recent relocation never fully understood how powerful they were as reference points or indications of the past. In a world where day to day living is dominated more and more by impalpable activities, it seems increasingly important to use objects to identify time and place. Even a simple memory can link a sensation and an experience again. Handmade objects have always interested me but now, as an anomaly in a world ruled by start-ups and online dating services, they seem exceptionally powerful. Reinvesting in humans and tangibility has become important to me on so many different levels.

As a potter, I'm trying to make work that indirectly encourages pause, social grace, and sometimes obsession. Creating time to share food, drink, and space with friends is something I think about often when I'm working and I hope in some ways this comes through in the work. I think it's important for humans to stay human.
 

Medium
Ceramics
 
 

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