Artist Statement

Artist Statement

I have been thinking about connection, community and mutation: the ways that we and all our fellow beings are entangled, as Mr. Darwin noted so vividly in his "Origin of Species." Darwin's notion was that sexual reproduction, by providing access to greater genetic variation, ensures a broader set of genetic capabilities for survival. Natural biological communities or symbiota have regulated life on this planet for millions of years. 

Recently, human modification of Earth's environments has resulted in massive ecocide, as well as a rapidly developing new set of possibilities for connecting, responding, and adapting; including a proliferation of genetically modified organisms and technologically mutated life forms. 

My recent ceramic sculptural work suggests the plastic, provisional, and uncertain world of a new and transgenic nature, where corporeal and manufactured entities recombine. These works serve as relics of possible futures and of the effect of human actions on earth systems. Today, countless species are at risk of extinction. How will life forms adapt and survive in a hot ocean of poisoned plastic? 

Sometimes you start by taking things apart. In my work, I combine disparate discarded plastic parts and other found materials with handmade ceramic forms to create these somewhat creaturely, hybrid forms-implying technologically altered genetic variants of the future and the struggle for species survival through adaptation in the post- Anthropocene era. I imagine that such adaptations may be occurring even now: in the depths of mother ocean, among our gut bacteria, or nested in mycelium tendrils wrapped around the roots of trees.

McQuaid, Cate, "Things to do around Boston this weekend and beyond, Visual Arts: Linda Leslie Brown: Entangled." The Boston Globe, The Ticket, November 4, 2021.

Whitcomb, Robert, "You have 5 minutes to untangle." New England Diary, November 5, 2021.

Ogden, Claire, "Linda Leslie Brown's "Entangled" Imagines Survival in the Post-Anthropocene Era." Kingston Blog, November 18, 2021.