Jason Walker

Jason Walker was born in 1973 and grew up in Pocatello, Idaho. He received a BFA from Utah State University and a MFA from Penn State University. After schooling he taught for two years in Napa California but quit teaching to pursue life as a studio artist. He spent two years as a resident at The Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, where he was the recipient of the Taunt Fellowship award. He has work in major collections such as the Fine Art Museum of San Francisco: De Young, the Carnegie Mellon Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the Arizona State University Art Museum, Ceramic Research Center, Tempe, Arizona. He has shown and lectured internationally in places such as China, South Korea and Ireland. He is currently represented by the Ferrin Gallery, and works as a studio artist in Bellingham, Washington.

Artist's Statement

What is Nature? This question is the guiding force behind my work. I feel we use the term nature very loosely in our language today, and in my work I am  searching for a place or an object that embodies the word nature. According to Webster’s Dictionary, nature is something in its essential form untouched and untainted by the hands of a human being. Here lies the problem to my quest. At the very heart of our own description of nature we exclude ourselves from it. Does this mean I am not natural? Although this argument may appear esoteric, the way in which we perceive nature inadvertently describes the way in which we perceive ourselves. I feel that technology has significantly changed and continues to mold our perception of nature. I feel we are pursuing our technological aspirations with a sort of blind admiration. Collectively, we see technology as only friend. Yet, technology is both friend and foe. Besides the obvious advantages technology may bring to our lives there lie unintended consequences and underlying messages behind every creation that forever change our perceptions, our social interactions and our relationship to nature and each other. It is in this grey area that I am trying to create a narrative