Alexis Deane

Name of School
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Expected Graduation Date:
05/13/2022

Faculty Nominator
Helen Lee

Reason for Faculty Nomination
Alix Deane enters into the field of glass and craft from a photographic background. Their work is a deep meditation on the environment as it relates to the human body, and the capacity of the human body to mother. Their studio practice is rich, well-researched, impeccably composed, and complex. They bring to the field of glass a wealth of material and process-based knowledge from their extensive background in photography. I nominate Alix not only because of the caliber of their work, but the exact fit with the call. Alix’s work is driven by extensive research into industrial environmental pollution—in particular in the North Carolina region, where they are from. They work with glass, water, light, and photography to bring greater awareness to the relationship between materials, the environment, and the human body. This dialog is situated within the impact of pollution on motherhood.

Please provide a brief description of your art or medium.
The following works are glass castings of sites within the littoral zone of the French Broad River basin that are designed to reference photographic negatives. (The littoral zone of a body of water is a space of protection of pollutants and erosion, as well as a place of production and procreation.) Glass is representative of water, the surface of skin and the tissue below, inside, bodily fluid; the space along the river’s edge where water may or may not currently be flowing, in present, past, and future.

Is your artwork handmade by you? If not, please explain
Yes

Are all or some of the components locally sourced?
None of the components of this work are locally sourced, but the initial molds are of the landscape that the work discusses.

Artist’s Statement:
While motherhood is commonly referred to as being a mother of a child, it is also indicative of carrying the spirit and capacity to be a mother. This expanded definition of motherhood defines the scope of my practice. My work is driven by the cyclical nature of life as it pertains to time, birth, and mortality. I respond to my own lived experience as a queer, cisgender woman. As a childbearing-aged body, I am interested in the relationship between reproductive health and environmental pollution. My research deconstructs histories and sites within the French Broad River watershed in North Carolina. This is the space of home. Through a triangulation of industrial history, environmental health, and the maternal experience, I tell the story of the cancer moving through the body and the land. Cancer is invisible and fluid like air and water.

How you will use the Fellowship funds if you are chosen as the winner.
My MFA work focuses on the ways in which the waterways of my childhood have been affected by past industry and what those effects are capable of doing to the surrounding ecosystems and human population. The river is segmented into quadrants and transformed into specimen to be situated in a gallery as materials including glass, metal, and light. These elements are paired with audio of spoken word that combines found research and storytelling. If provided with funding through the Windgate Fellowship, this body of work would be expanded to incorporate larger castings of significant points along the river. The headwaters and spaces along hazardous waste sites are two examples of points I would be interested in producing at a larger scale. In order to fabricate works in glass and metal outside of graduate school, support in material costs as well as facilitation will be crucial.