Richard Burkett
Artist Statement
I am unapologetically a vessel maker, working in clay to make objects that are often sculptural, but with the implicit possibility of function. My father was a scientist first and foremost, but also a maker, a tinkerer, an inventor.
As a child, I often asked about the strange vessels in his laboratory, fascinated by both their form and function. Sealed containers brought up more questions. Science was an integral part of my life as I grew up, offering clarity, discovery, the understanding of how things work through the dialogue between fact and theory. I was also drawn to art and its ambiguity and metaphor, and its potential for meaningfully connecting us to mysteries of human existence.
The rich history of ceramics is rife with the latter, celebrating, through the strange fusion of art and science that is ceramics, the joys of existence and the metaphysical aspects of life and death.