Bio
Irene Stivers Nelson is a ceramic artist based in Seattle, Washington. She grew up running around the forests and dunes of California’s Central Coast, which began her lifelong fascination with nature. She studied fashion design at UC Davis, her culminating work a surrealism-based fashion collection with sea creatures emerging from and encrusting the garments. After college, Irene worked in design of various forms – first bridal gowns, later graphic and user experience design – before finding her artistic passion in ceramics. She began taking pottery classes through the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department in 2018 and joined Rat City Studios in 2023. Irene's ceramic sculptures and relief-covered vessels celebrate nature, with underlying themes of infinity, shifting dimensionality, and surrealism.
Artist Statement
In elementary school my class was asked what single wish we would ask of a genie; mine was for humans and everything we’ve done to disappear from the world. As an adult my feelings about this are far more nuanced, but that same fierce love of the wilderness compels my artwork. In the real world, stories and facts about the interactions between humans and animals fascinate me, but through my artwork I prefer to create a fantasy where nature is ascendant.
I primarily create ceramic sculptures and reliefs. Using stoneware and porcelain, I add dense detail to larger forms. Circular and otherwise looping shapes, suggesting the idea of infinity, are embedded with wildlife and landscape details. I like to vary dimensionality in my artwork; a single sculpture may start out with an area of incised line art, progress through low or mid relief, and end up as a Baroque explosion of life bursting from the surface. In my more two-dimensional pieces, I avoid most aspects of linear perspective to create a feeling of endlessness, like a living wallpaper that never repeats.
With my current work I seek to portray a limitless Antarctic shoreline, stark but teeming with life. I repeat endless variations of what are to me the most essential Antarctic elements – fur seals, penguins, rocks, and ice – purposefully making what is already a dreamlike and alien landscape (for humans at least) more explicitly surreal. This work is heavily influenced by a trip to Antarctica in 2018 as well as by religious and heroic imagery. The latter themes reflect my interest in the animals’ individuality and the mystery and richness of their social interactions, devoid of human interference and outside our experience. What makes one fur seal a local celebrity, attracting side-eye and posturing from those nearby? Not knowing the answer is somehow sacred to me.
