Pj Anderson is a ceramic artist from Thompson, Manitoba, Canada, currently residing in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Pj has shown Nationally across Canada and internationally, as Resident Artist at the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa, where she had previously visited as a Zulu ceramics researcher, China as a finalist in the International Ceramic Magazine Editors Associations (ICMEA) emerging artist competition, the United States. She teaches at the Winnipeg Art Gallery Studio Program and is currently a graduate candidate at the University of Manitoba and Director at Large for NCECA.
My practice has always been heavily influenced by my interest in traditional cultures use of clay. While much of the current ceramic dialogue has referenced the traditions Europe and Asia, I have been drawn to the ceramic works of Africa and the Americas. I enjoy exploring methods to push the range of surface a burnished piece can hold. Some of the forms I am currently exploring are exercises in silhouette and negative space. These pieces focus on the relationship between the fire on the burnished surface and the simplified silhouette of these pieces.
The weaving in addition to the smoke fired ceramics is an extension of the ceramic formation methods. The vast majority of my pieces are coiled, so the addition of the coil weaving is an additional way of using a similar formation of a dissimilar media. They inform each other and are self-referential. Having a solid media like ceramic and blending it with a softness of fibers reinforces the disparity as well as the similarity.
I’m a graduate candidate at the University of Manitoba and am currently exploring the role of digital media on cultural, sexual and gender expression and the weaponization of the backlash to those expressions.
— PJ Anderson