Windfallen fruit is a symptom of being overloaded. 

Metabolic by Emily Ginsburg contains ceramic forms brightly adorned with patterned glazes. The patterned motifs are surface mixed, varied from those found in household textiles, to the food we eat, the waves we hear and feel, juxtaposed with the zeros and ones we consume and create daily. The sculptures' tessellated surfaces are beautiful and  overwhelming in their ability to skew our spatial perspective.  Cast offs from industrial production ceramic work thrown into plastic bags are the nascent point of  production that embodies the weight of its own creation and the material history of origin.  The residue of hand labor transfers to the objects analogous to the glass and copper Fedex works of Walead Beshty but seem to have a more human undertone than the cynical  late capitalist worker critique of that era. 

If one was to describe these works aesthetically through a pop cultural reference they might be the spurious offspring of Gene Wilder’s everlasting gobstopper and a giant boardwalk candy shop jawbreaker that has been licked to death.  That person would be right, but in spirit the sculptures are more akin to Wonka’s Rube Goldberg machine that synthesizes an entire feast into a single piece of gum. There is hope and despair in the imaginative possibility that all experience and consumption could be compressed in our bodies like a zip file and sent off.  If artistic production is the barometer for culture in the future, an appendix that captures the too muchness in our lives that can be removed at a later date would be a refreshing dehumidifier of possibility.

-derek franklin

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Emily Ginsburg was born in New York, New York. She received her BA in Art History from Trinity College and an MFA in Printmaking from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Her work maps the psychosocial impact of everyday life through diverse media.  She reflects on how our social interactions are perpetually shaped by media systems, daily practices, and the functions of the body. Over her 30 plus year career, works have been exhibited nationally and internationally and commissioned for multiple public art projects in Seattle and Portland.   She has also been awarded various project grants and residencies most recently at the Siena Art Institute in Siena Italy.  Projects have been reviewed in Art Papers, Art US, Ceramics Now, and The 22 Magazine amongst others.

Ginsburg lives and works in Portland, Oregon where she is Professor, and Chair of Intermedia, at the Pacific Northwest College of Art at Willamette University.