Jennifer McCandless is a Detroit native now living and sculpting in Burlington, VT. her current work is a collection of ceramic sculptures using humor and satirical narratives to challenge the viewer’s perspectives on constructions of identity and societal norms. The pieces offer a social critique of how we interpret the ills of the world, how we interact with one another, and how we see ourselves. The artist’s fascination with human behavior is cultivated in the study of figure and grounded in satirical narrative. The expressive quality of the clay is used to take dark social and personal realities and offer playful, ironic or damning commentaries.

Jennifer received her BFA in Sculpture from Parsons School of Art and Design and her MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has taught Ceramics and Sculpture at Wayne State University and The Loomis Institute. She is currently Art Department Chair, Curator and Director of the Mercy Gallery and a Nichols Fellow in Art at Loomis.

‘My current work is a collection of ceramic sculptures using humor and satirical narratives to challenge the viewer’s perspectives on constructions of identity and societal norms. The pieces offer a social critique of how we interpret the ills of the world, how we interact with one another, and how we see ourselves. My fascination with human behavior is cultivated in the study of figure, grounded in satirical narrative. The expressive quality of the clay is used to take dark social and personal realities and offer playful, ironic or damning commentaries. Our relationships to ourselves, nature, religion, each other, death: this is often the unpalatable stuff of life. Art allows me to slow down the barrage of information and contemplate through sculpting, a point of view, communicating, hopefully through humor, my frustrations and thoughts.”