"I've always been mesmerized by the reality that everything is at some rate changing, even that which seems fixed. And that a single experience can, at times, contrast itself, feeling both tragic and beautiful at the same time. In a way, my work is about my expanding awareness of and acceptance from within these fundamental dynamics." - Yvonne Mouser
Municipal Bonds is pleased to present a solo exhibition of sculptural works by Yvonne Mouser, titled The Shape of Time. Oakland-based Mouser investigates her fascination with perceptions of time and natural phenomena, through works suggesting growth, decay, or a sequence of temporal states. In altering mundane objects, she creates portraits of moments teasing apart strands of time and causality. Finding flux visible at the intersections of order and chaos, of reality and memory, she experiments with concepts, materials, and evolving processes that draw attention to moments of transformation.
Mouser explores ideas through the making of objects, experimenting with concepts, materials, and methods with a foundation in the traditions of a woodworking studio. She utilizes craft techniques for joining, shaping, and manipulating material to create furniture, everyday objects, and sculptures. Her work plays with technical processes like coopering, steam bending, laminating, and casting. At times, actions such as grinding and burning, and accumulative assemblies allow for an intuitive approach.
Driven by tactility, Mouser incorporates a range of materials in her work—from metal, glass, sand, and paper, to natural fibers and composites. In her practice, craft thinking evolves through hands-on experimentation, where processes often lead to new forms and materials motivate methods. She approaches each new object-making effort as an exercise in restraint, focusing on the purity of an idea and the most direct construction methods in an attempt to achieve simplicity in the final outcome. She is interested in the layering of functionality or structure for transforming familiar objects, yielding adaptations of vernacular forms.
Yvonne Mouser is an artist, designer, and maker based in Oakland, California. She was born in San Diego and raised in semi-rural Texas where her love of the tactile world first attracted her to sculpture. Functional interest led her to the furniture program at California College of the Arts where she received a BFA with high distinction in 2006. Her work is included in private collections, and has been exhibited internationally and nationally including the Salone del Mobile in Milan, Italy; the Center for Art in Wood in Philadelphia; the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design; the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco; COPIA in Napa, CA; the Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts in Alta Loma, CA; and the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, CA.
Mouser was a Wornick Distinguished Visiting Professor of Wood Arts within the Furniture Program of California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She has been awarded artist-in-residence at Autodesk's Pier 9 in San Francisco; the Workshop Residence in San Francisco; the Windgate Artist-in-Residence of The Furniture Program in the School of Art + Design at San Diego State University; Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, CO; and was recipient of the Ron and Anita Wornick Award at California College of the Arts.
Working both independently and with a diverse group of collaborators, Mouser's work exists between the practical and conceptual, spanning furniture design, experiences, and fine art. Her own design studio, established in 2009, creates one of a kind objects and small run production pieces. She co-founded New Factory, a design studio and workshop; Thought for Food, where she focused on the artifacts and experiences of eating; and YMSF, an ongoing collaboration with the fashion and textile company Stella Fluorescent.
Yvonne Mouser: The Shape of Time is on view at Municipal Bonds, 1275 Minnesota Street, San Francisco, CA, September 18 - November 20, 2021, Thursday - Saturday, 12-5pm and by appointment. For more information, please contact Emily Miller at 917.450.0583, info@municipalbonds.art.
