Christy Georg

May-June 2009

About the Artist

Christy Georg has been called “a sculptor of wit and ingenuity, clearly in the tradition of Jean Tinguely and Bruce Nauman, but brilliantly original in her use of existential humor to invigorate the works” by sculptor Rob Fisher. Born in Chicago and raised in Houston, she received her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art, her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute, and also studied glassblowing at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. She has exhibited widely, having solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Artists Center in North Adams, the Roswell Museum, Gettysburg College, and University of Massachusetts at Lowell. She has been awarded residencies at Sculpture Space, Ross Creek in Nova Scotia, Pouch Cove in Newfoundland, Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, Boston’s Berwick Research Institute, Roswell AIR program, the MacDowell Colony, and I-Park. She is a 2006 recipient of a Visual Arts Sea Grant from the University of Rhode Island and was recently nominated for the Blanche E. Colman award. Her current body of nautically inspired work will culminate in a solo show at the Trustman Gallery in Boston in the fall of 2009.

Project Description

I make sculptural instruments and devices which function either actually, or metaphorically. Their elusive, esoteric function tickles curiosity and speculation. I continue this in a body of work influenced by the sea.

This “Nautical Body” of sculpture, performance, and drawings has required me to physically become one. I exhaustively researched maritime history and culture to actualize a modern relationship to stories, lore, and tricks and trades of explorers, pirates, fishermen, ‘old salts,’ and sea-steading sailors. It forced me to live the life of my subject -living and working on the 83’ sailing schooner,Mystic Whaler, and later my own 23’ sailboat. This training instilled a rare insight into the “dying art” of maritime culture, practical techniques, and crafts, which inspire the work. The local environment of the Atlantic coast and its rich maritime history inspires and influences the work. I make a contemporary reflection on history and the importance of the sea to culture… with the benefit of hindsight.