Chloe Mosbacher

Artist Statement:

Upstate Entanglements -

Creating for me, functions as a ritual of recalling my position as a fragment of the environmentreflecting back on itself. I create sculptures that combine the forms of different living things and man-made ephemera that stick out to me while exploring the many trails offered by the privately-owned and state-run organizations that have come to shape the land known by dominant American culture as the Hudson Valley. I create vessels that seek to embody the

entangled relationships between organisms as well as geologic and human histories, particularly of human incursion, habitation, and the Euro-American imagination associated with the Hudson Valley. The resulting chimeras are physical representations of tutelary spirits. The word Tutelary comes from the latin word for guardian, tutelarius, which derives from the combination of the word tutela, an analog for “guardian” and “protection,” and the suffix -arius

which relates to ideas of belonging and connection. They are guardians that possess an ambiguous affect, being that they bring together critters who serve, or once served vital functions in the ecosystem, such as native pollinators and recently extirpated apex predators with depictions of invasive species such as the spotted lantern fly and evidence of colonial histories, such as in the forms inspired by field stone walls. The vessels contain the “spirit of place” down to the materials they were constructed from. They are mainly sculpted, glazed, painted and adorned with foraged clay, stones and washed up detritus such as brick, glass

and other fragments from along the Hudson River.