Collyn Ahren

Series of sessions, in progress, enacting physical therapy during the process of retrieving memories of grief and loss.

Session 2, performed with 30 pounds of clay

Session 3, performed with 150 pounds of clay, filling the duration of a 1 hour therapy session.

View Session 3 on Video Page

Work in progress

Reclamation concerns the self-healing practice of reclaiming one’s trauma through acts of recycling and repetition. By enacting a moment of loss, one relives the personal experience aiding in the ability to cope. By re-building one can find a resting place in ritual.

Performance piece live sculpting: enacting choice on the figure by the removal of potential for birth.

Collaboration with Danny Griffin 

Wood-fired raw clay body slab, fired in a hand built Anagama kiln

4' x 8' x 3" 

Eckerd College

St. Petersburg, Florida 

2017-18

Creating landscape by exploration of our biological experience. The birth of the object as an archival still-life from an act of passion and procreation. 

This is an installation of the documentation of a 12 minute long performance piece. I question the culture and practice of traditional stye tattoo emerging from the 1940's. I am interested in patriotism and liberation from system. The process of making purple creates conversation about gender roles.

View Video:

"Performance" tab

https://collynahren.com/bloghi/tradition

“The size of an atom is governed by the average location of its electrons. Nuclei are 100,000 times smaller than the atoms they are housed in. If we lost all of the dead space inside our atoms, we would each be able to fit into a particle of lead dust, and the entire human race would fit into the volume of a sugar cube.”

Piece will be shown in the National Juried Student Exhibition in Pittsburgh 2018

Re-upped vintage children's desk with modified table top drawing machine.

Custom functional pedestal for Trauma interview sessions

Window of pedastal holds my body weight in clay

Project details under "Open Doorways" tab

“Action Glazing” using a Paintball Gun.

Investigating the space between play/combat.

One of a series of three collages investigating body, material and image

Photographs from Spectrum Mag

The language of string

and Letting go.

The unraveling of choice

Exhibition at CCACA

(California Conference for the Advancement of Ceramic Art)

Davis, CA 2017

Money is the root of the problem

This installation piece sparks discussion surrounding the aggressive nature of capitalism.

Porcelain ceramic, gold luster, yarn

10'x6'x4"

Thoughts about my place as a woman and an artist, utilizing the fisherman's net to capture non-tangible ideals. Also, the net being a metaphor for the feeling of containment.

Ceramic and yarn

Through process and repetition of threading yarn through plywood, I practice commitment. The ceramic fist emphasizes the hand of the maker. This is a metaphor through choice of color and material of social activism in a constricted environment.

low-fired ceramic, underglaze, yarn, wood

2'11"x1'4"x4'

Gender is not confined by stereotypical boundaries, gender is fluid. This work questions social norms and the ability to move within a spectrum of masculine and feminine. Each individual has a unique tongue print as well as identity.

low-fired ceramic, underglaze, paint

1'x3"x5'

Cats Cradle, a child’s elaborate string game, represents the maintaining of culture passed through generations. The importance of play time to the artist is just as crucial as practicing tradition. Again, the ceramic hands represent the maker and salvaged denim from worn down work clothes records the passing of time.

low-fired ceramic, salvaged denim

7x1'x2'11"

80 percent of schools have experienced severe budget cutbacks on art programs since 2008. This piece expresses my concern for change through a system of metaphor: fingers as statistics and color as institution.

low-fired ceramic, underglaze, paint, plastic

6"x10"x22"

The balance of constant pressure of the critic and maintaining unique voice as an artist is often overbearing. Through use of figurative metaphor, I portray the pain of loosing authenticity, or teeth, over viewers’ opinion.

low-fired ceramic, underglaze, yarn

1'1"x4"x2'9"

The sleep of reason awakens monsters. This piece acknowledges the balance of anxiety associated with PTSD and functioning in everyday life.