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Artist Statement​

 

My work interrogates contemporary beauty practices, examining how even normalized rituals—wearing high heels, shapewear, or intricate nail designs—quietly restrict movement, dexterity, and autonomy. While these choices may appear personal and superficial, they echo a long history of societal demands for women to sculpt, polish, and self-regulate—literally down to their fingertips.

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Drawing on Victorian decor, I highlight parallels between the physical constraints imposed on women in the 1800s and the subtler forms of containment still present today. Outward pressures have shifted—from corsets and rigid social codes to self-policing and the demand to always be presentable—but the expectations remain hauntingly consistent. Many floral patterns embedded in my sculptures are sourced from Victorian wallpapers laced with arsenic: decorative surfaces hiding invisible harm. Similarly, I build up layers of ornamentation on my sculptures using press molded details, slip trailing, underglazes, glazes, china paint, lusters and cold finishes. These overly ornate surfaces mirror the demand for constant presentation. 

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 In contrast to idealized bodies celebrated in art history and pop culture, my sculptures depict distorted, fragmented, and abstracted feminine forms. Using various handbuilding methods, fleshy forms are segmented by belts, buttons, and pearls; amorphous blobs are squeezed by expectations yet bulge in resistance. Mirrored forms, contorted bodies, and elaborately adorned surfaces reflect on the persistent pressures that shape how women move, present, and see themselves and prompts us to examine our notions of beauty, their origins, and their effects.

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Bio

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     Corran Shrimpton is from Syracuse, NY and received her MFA from Georgia State University and her BFA from Alfred University. She has been an Artist-In-residence at a number of ceramic studios including The Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, FL, Lillstreet Art Center in Chicago, IL and most recently Mudflat Studios in Somerville, MA. Her work has been exhibited across the United States and is in the permanent collection of The Newcomb Museum of Art. She is the recipient of the Mass Cultural Council Grant for Creative Individuals, the Lisa Elwell Ceramic Artist Endowed Encouragement Award, ArtFields Merit Award and the Bailey Emerging Artist Scholarship. 

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