About the artist
Shauna Fahley is a ceramicist currently based out of Brooklyn, NY. Her sculptures embody her chosen compounding material and subject: clay and horse. She notes that both are foundational to humankind’s development. Her primary aim is, she writes, “to reconfigure the equine icon as a vehicle for understanding empathy beyond ourselves.” Fahley’s sculptures critique the legacy of horses’ objectification in Western Art, presenting an alternative vision. Many of her sculptures eschew the rider, focussing solely on the horse. They are the collective image of horses throughout time, a modern equine monument. And yet, some works reveal that the best horse-human interactions shed hierarchy in favor of an expansion of two separate beings into one. It begins with points of contact: hand to clay, hand to coat, seat to spine.
Artist Statement
The horse and the brick were both fundamental in the development of civilization. My work embodies the intersection of both the compounding material and subject, clay and horse. It is not my goal to illustrate the romantic or heroic image of the horse. Instead, I aim to reconfigure the equine icon as a vehicle for understanding empathy beyond ourselves and the animal, but the greater consciousness of humanity. I am exploring large equine forms in a modern context as an archaic remix to interpret and critique the past while existing in the present. I am vivisecting the equestrian monument, illustrating the removal of the human, letting the horse have its power without a dominant figure. This work is the alternative to the equestrian monument; it is the equine monument. In spending time with these objects, viewers are invited to transcend the static and investigate embodiment, change, ephemerality, and the gigantic.
