Maria Chaudavis

I have been working as a studio artist for many years using paint, clay, metal, and domestic mediums.

I find that a work is most eloquent when I can meld the process, the medium, and the concept together. The work I do has a visceral, emotional impetus. With the "Shards" sculptures I used pieces of clay, on sand and salt to speak of persistence, life and mortality.

"White Sea Bass" is a public art piece done in collaboration with Diane Dancer, Patricia Roose, and Robert McGuire. White bass are indigenous fish in the lagoons and kelp beds off Carlsbad. We created the brushed aluminum bodies of the fish to catch the changing qualities of light at the site: twilight, the flash of headlights at night, and in the shadows during the day.

A large portion of my work has been with the assemblages of found and made objects (the "Boxed Relics") and the concrete pieces that followed. A broken cross or a paintbrush handle in heat-blackened rubble is very evocative.

I also like working with traditional methods and images. Some of the earlier representational work was done in clay. I found a clay body that would fire into a warm flesh tone when saggered.

The cast bronze figures of "Babies and Calla Lilies" refer to t...

University of California, Santa Barbara
Bachelor of Arts (1979) in Art History and
Fine Art (with emphasis in ceramics California Polytechnic State University
Bachelor of Science (1982) in Landscape
Architecture