FALON MIHALIC, ARTIST STATEMENT

I am a sculptor based in Houston, Texas working in ceramics, painting, and environmental installation. I take ephemeral natural systems and hidden ecologies like local weather and water bodies and I give them form by mapping, making, and building their fleeting qualities into permanent sculptures and paintings.

My studio is a laboratory where I rigorously test the colorful, moody and emotional qualities of materials like ceramics, glass, and terrazzo. I am constantly exploring color applications and material processes that are environmentally sound and archival for large scale sculptural work. My work is informed by site and ecology research and manifested in the studio as mixed media collage paintings and ceramic sculptures. My paintings are collections of site qualities, like remnants of feelings, views, or experiences in the landscape with a dense overlapping and layering of color washes and collaged imagery from my landscape photos. This is a way of recalling complex systems and invisible actions of a place like water flow, plant growth, and cloud formations. My ceramic sculptures are colored porcelain and stoneware with my own glaze formulations that I have made through a rigorous testing process. The resulting ceramic pieces are organic forms with layers of texture and washes of atmospheric color.

My public art commissions tell the stories of fluctuating patterns and hidden ecologies. With my monumental artworks, I am revealing hidden ecological qualities and placing them at the forefront of the public’s imagination.