sandra milton
ABOUT
Sandra Milton’s formal art education began in the 1980s with the Quida Canaday Atelier and continues today through study programs and workshops. Her past gallery affiliations include The Lowe Gallery, Carlton Cobb and Ariel Galleries. Her work has been accepted into many juried competitions and honored with many awards. Being active in Atlanta for 20 years, Sandra’s focus has gradually shifted to her community, Roswell, working to develop an art semblance. While she continues to participate and support arts organizations, projects, events and bi-annual art walks, her ongoing commitment to introduce diverse cultures and ideas constitutes a fresh approach to our vital cultural arts community.
ARTIST STATEMENT
The visual language of my work radiates out from a core of light and energy enveloping the viewer deeper into the elusive and intangible tension of opposites. Approaching my work on that level of intimacy allows me a glimpse into a private and honest place, getting right into the center of the being and the immortality of the human spirit.
By exploring universal themes of connection and disconnections and the threads that bind us together, fragments of identity become intertwined in layered dimensions of time, space, personal history, unity and renewal.
Even though our religious, political and cultural differences are so steeped in historical conflict, the need for reconciling the bonds of humanity within a conflicted world of human instinct and spiritual ideals is universal. Exploring within this framework, the sculptural forms within the plaster are drawn on, sanded out, reshaped and redrawn until the manifestation of the figures accentuate the principle elements of the opposites. Further, the emergence and regression of the symbolic images in the cyclic life of nature (recognizable forms but often obscure) manifest in transcendent connections to the divine.
The ongoing evolution of these principle elements and the vulnerability and strength of the human spirit inspire my explorations and discoveries of the human experience.
“I approach my work intuitively using various clays and methods of hand building. This allows me a level of intimacy into a private and honest place, getting right into the center of being and the immortality of the human spirit. This core is grounded in a foundation of reality, juxtaposing ordinary days with personal history directing the work to a basic expression of unity and renewal. Meaningful objects and old relics are often incorporated into the developing sculptures and are fired numerous times with slips and stains to achieve a delicate or textured surface. These disparate pieces are reassembled, bound or balanced together allowing negative spaces to create breathing room to the overall composition. Refining these reconfigured parts a new dialogue emerges, at once ambiguous and ambivalent enveloping the viewer deeper into the elusive tension of opposites. By exploring universal themes of connection and disconnections and the threads that bind us together, fragments of identity become intertwined, not really whole or complete, poised between the here and there.”
Sandra Milton, 2010