BIO

Katriona Drijber is a ceramic artist who was born and raised in a small coal mining town in British Columbia, Canada. Drijber was only sixteen when she graduated high school and left home to attend Kootenay School of the Arts. It was here that she took her first clay class and began a lifelong fascination with ceramics. Several years after earning her diploma in studio ceramics at KSA, Drijber went back to school to complete her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree in ceramics at Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, Alberta. The visiting instructor program at ACAD exposed Drijber to many national and international professional artists and opened her eyes to the world of research and travel that ceramics could open up.

After graduating from ACAD, Drijber attended residencies and conducted ceramic research at institutions such as the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana, the Banff Center in Canada, and Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center in Denmark. A recent MFA graduate of Utah State University, she has worked and attended residencies at institutions such as Penland School of Craft, North Carolina; Arrowmont School of Craft, Tennessee; and The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China. During the COVID-19 pandemic she completed half of a long-term residency at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana, and currently she is a studio artist working out of the crowsnest pass, Alberta.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Patterns hold a seductive beauty in both their production and consumption. We surround ourselves with repeating patterns in our dwellings and on our clothes, and speak of patterns of weather, behavior, and thought.

Repeating and infinite patternwork is often tied to our sense of the sacred; when each unit of a pattern interlocks perfectly into place it is easy to see pattern as a reflection of sacred connectivity. Yet, our conception of the world and its resources as infinite has led to collapse of animal and plant ecosystems around the world many times over. The animals and plants I paint, carve and sculpt onto my ceramics disrupt the sense of the infinite created by the formal patterns, just as an encounter with a wild animal has the potential to disrupt our conceptions of supposedly “rightful” human hegemony on this planet. What is this animal thinking? Why is it here? Where is it going?

The carvings and paintings of animals and plants that live in the Intermountain West disrupt and cohabit with the patterns on my ceramic objects. They appear upon and inside of objects that normally reside in the domestic space such as cups and bowls, functional objects that themselves are central to many everyday patterns of human behavior. The depictions of the natural world are, I hope, a reminder that we share this world with other beings who we so often forget about.

Project Network Reunion Invitational Residency 2022