2016 Sally Becker Grinspan Award for Artistic Achievement

Abstract

Sophia Mason's work "Bandage Box" is made of fabric, batting, tracing paper, and acrylic paint. It was selected for the 2016 Sally Becker Grinspan award during the Senior Thesis exhibition in April, 2016. Sophia's artist statement reads: "As I consider where religion fails and succeeds, my work presents an irreverent, playful reality where every-day tools become the playthings of faith and devotion. I draw on art history, religious architecture, and ritual objects to force meaning onto these pointless visions. The sculptures' forms entertain me when they pucker and slump as I try to translate them into flimsier materials. In intensely caring for them, their embellishment leans toward a gaudy and overwrought sanctity. The soft sculptures in concert with evocative sound and smell then put on a good show of straightforward, functional uses, but once installed with careful precision in a gallery space, they flaunt their uselssness and take on loaded metaphors."