Roshanak Ghezelbash

Lives and works in San Diego, CA

Artist statement

Artist Statement — The Last Survivor The Last Survivor considers what happens when a body enters a new place and neither remains unchanged. I create hand-built ceramic figures that move between bodies, vessels, architectural fragments, and ruins. Their elongated forms, cavities, cuts, and irregular surfaces resist complete identification. A figure may resemble a torso, a column, a shelter, or the remains of a structure. I am interested in this ambiguity because migration also unsettles fixed definitions of body, home, and belonging. The installation is designed to change over time. The ceramic figures are positioned in relation to iron elements that will oxidize during the exhibition. As the iron reacts with moisture and air, its surface shifts in color and texture, and traces of that transformation become part of the work. The installation is therefore never completely finished at the moment it is installed. This process is central to the meaning of the piece. Immigration is often described as movement from one place to another, but I am interested in it as a process of mutual transformation. A person arrives somewhere and changes the social, cultural, and emotional fabric of that place, while being changed by it in return. Identity is not simply preserved or lost; it is altered through contact. The ceramic bodies and oxidizing iron embody this exchange. Clay records touch, pressure, and fire, while iron records exposure, time, and environment. One material carries the...

Artwork