Mandee Gage uses clay as a building material, dug from the earth and able to be manipulated by the hand. Clay also has an enduring relationship to the home environment. She uses it to make vessels that contain miniature scenes, both sweet and disturbing, which can be viewed through windows.
Her interest is in ecological issues and social and financial structures which prevent change and sustainable development. Psychologically, although we respond well to immediate danger, we appear to be unable to fully take on board longer range problems even if they are likely to be life threatening. Other issues are levels of inequality and the hierarchy of power, which maintain a flawed and unjust system.
There is an element of the sweet ceramic toadstool lamps of her youth combined with imagery more akin to the sometimes unsettling scenes from virtual war games. It is through this sweet and sour context that the work views possible futures.
Mandee Gage studied BA ceramics at Loughborough University and gained her MA at the Cardiff Institute.
