Eunika's Portfolio

EUNIKA ROGERS

Memphis, Tennessee, USA

email: eunika(at)mac.com

website: www.ipaintwithclay.com

Artist Statement:

My work is rooted in nature and the female body. I search for ways to explore how each changes with time, often focusing on a spiritual and physical connection with the land. I use nature as my inspiration for the process and the medium I use in my art work – I paint with clay.

Earth creates images as time constantly passes. I record these images in my photographs, capturing a moment in time, and then, using clay and other organic matter, I fossilize these images in my paintings. In the Earth takes all living things, I resurrect them in my paintings, using clay and pigments from the Earth, in their raw form. It is a primitive process, and a primitive medium, one that was used by a primitive man in cave paintings of Altamira or Lascaux. To paint with clay is to stain the surface that will never fade overtime. Time changes things but my paintings stay eternal.

Biography:

Eunika was born and raised in a small village near Trnava, Slovakia, former Czechoslovakia. At the age of 12, she and her family went on a vacation to former Yugoslavia and never returned home - they fled what was then a communist block country. They spent the next 4 months in refugee camps and eventually immigrated to Canada.

Seven years later, after graduating from high school with honors, she packed her bags again and headed south to the Mississippi Delta following a tennis and cross country running scholarship at Delta State University. Her studies included double major in graphic arts and ceramics. During her senior year, under the guidance of her ceramic professor / mentor (and now a very close friend) Marcella Small, she discovered her passion for clay - not only as an art form but also as a spiritual experience. On weekends they would go on clay digs in the Mississippi hills and work on their individual works of art.

After receiving her BFA, Eunika was accepted to attend graduate program in University of Memphis with emphasis in ceramics. Her MFA thesis intentions were to create beautifully thrown ceramic pieces. Instead, her final works included a mixture or raw and natural instillations created from her clay digs. These works provided an extensive collection of 'red-stained' studio clothes that lead to the idea of using clay as a painting medium.

Today she still paints with Mississippi red clay that she digs up near Carrollton Mississippi. She also has added other clays and pigments to her palette. As a hiker and ultra distance trail runner she has the means to find secluded areas with clay deposits. She runs with a small backpack and along with her running/hiking gear she carries a small shovel, ziplock bags and her camera to record her experience. She has a collection of umber, sienna and ochre pigmented clays from across America's countryside. These clays provide the staining pigments that make up her art imagery. Through her art she tries to capture the "passage of time" and how it imprints on our lives.

Qualifications:

University of  Memphis, Memphis, TN, MFA 1997

Delta State University, Cleveland, MS, BFA 1994

Selected Exhibitions:

2012 Mississippi College Faculty Exhibit, Meridian, MS

2012 Project 30 January Exhibit

2011 Florence Biennale Exhibit, Florence, Italy

2011 NWCC Faculty Exhibit, Senatobia, MS

2011 Project 30 October Exhibit

2011 Copiah Lincoln Community College Solo Exhibit, Wesson, MS

2011 Project 30 July Exhibit

2011 Artist of the Month (January), Telluride, CO

2010 Project 30 December Exhibit

2010 NWCC Faculty Exhibit, Senatobia, MS

2010 Senatobia Banks Show, Senatobia, MS

2010 PINK, Invitational Breast Cancer Awareness Show, Senatobia, MS

2009 Laurel Museum Invitational, juried, Laurel, MS

2009 Senatobia Bank Show, Senatobia, MS

2009 FORTUNE COOKIE, Invitational, Senatobia, MS

2007 NWCC Faculty Exhibit, Senatobia, MS

2006 Delta State Alumni Art Invitational, Cleveland, MS

Image Gallery:

  Fall in Aspen Grove, Mississippi red clay, gold clay from Shelby Forrest and charcoal on canvas, 2011

And a deeper silence, Colorado clay, (gold from Red Mountain pass and brown from upper St. Miguel River) and charcoal on paper, 2012

Nude Study, Mississippi red clay and charcoal on paper, 2011

Like dandelions in the wind, Mississippi red clay and charcoal on paper, 2011

Window of Time, Mississippi red clay and charcoal on canvas, 2012

Private Universe, Mississippi red clay and charcoal on paper, 2011