April Pauza
Artist Statement
My work is directly inspired by my southern upbringing and from the everyday experiences I have of being a woman. My work makes levity of this. Holding onto things of the past, while simultaneously collecting things in preparation for the future, was a huge part of the culture of my upbringing. These frivolous, mundane, ridiculous preparations shown through these found objects are symbolic references to the humorous ideals pushed on me in my southern upbringing.
Using kitsch objects and materials such as tchotchkes, picture plates, and silk flowers, I tell my story in a very maximalist, over-the-top, campy way. This is me expressing how absurd these ideals and experiences were and currently are. My process includes accumulating, repurposing, deconstructing, and building with found materials that represent these meanings to me. I then manipulate, transform, and adorn these objects and materials, with each other to build associations using metaphors.
Focusing on societal ideals of womanhood, gender roles in the home, and my southern upbringing, has transformed my concept of home to be viewed through a lens of ambivalence. This space can be both supportive and nurturing, but also oppressive and disorienting. I embrace this ambivalence, using it to create a feeling of both familiarity and displacement within my work.
Bio
April Pauza is an interdisciplinary artist and professor from Germantown, Tennessee. She received her B.A. in Sculpture and Ceramics from Union University and her M.F.A. in Art Studio at the University of Kentucky with a focus in Ceramics and Fibers in 2020. She is a interdisciplinary artist working within a sculpture and installation framework that unravels domestic ideals of womanhood, gender roles in the home, and her southern upbringing.
Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in museums and galleries. These museums and galleries include the Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan, Alabama, Patricia Sweetow Gallery in San Francisco, CA, Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, Illinois, Kinhouse Gallery, the McColl Center, the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio, For Spring 2025, she exhibited with Sean Riley in a two person show, “Thresholds” at Montgomery College in Silver Spring, Maryland. She was recently awarded third place at the Howard County Arts Council, Juried Arts Maryland Biennial for her work “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch”. For fall 2025, she will be participating in a solo exhibition titled, It’ll all come out in the wash” at the Art Council of York County in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
She has been an artist resident at the 701 Center for Contemporary Art Columbia, South Carolina, Mendocino Art Center in Mendocino, California, and the Tend Artist Residency at the Walkaway House in North Adams, MA. Currently, she resides in Frostburg, Maryland as Lecturer of sculpture and gallery director at Frostburg State University.