Artist Statement:
Claudia Eckel’s textural artworks illustrate personal narratives and explore the complexities of adolescence through layered media and subject matter. Eckel uses a range of mark-making methods, including incised graffiti-like scratches, pencil drawing, and fine art painting techniques. She also shows diverse textural styles through mixed media which include plaster, wax, paint, graphite, and stickers. The combination of these types of marks and media calls into question the hierarchy favoring traditional fine art techniques and highlights the capacity of creative works made at any skill level to be considered fine art. The techniques and symbols she uses echo tropes used by adolescent artists and serve to reinforce the themes within her narratives. While the stories explored in her work are personal, they seek to touch common ideas and motifs surrounding teenage-dom, inviting viewers to bring their own experiences into the interpretation of her work.

Bio:
Claudia Eckel is an artist, writer, and educator from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is currently a public school art teacher as well as a mixed-media painter. Claudia has exhibited her work throughout Pennsylvania including group shows at the State Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and Moore College of Art and Design. Additionally, as an educator, she has presented at State Conferences and at Penn State University. Claudia is currently the reigning champ of the International Portrait Knock-out, hosted in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

An opening reception will be held in Speer Gallery on Friday, January 11 from 4:00 - 7:00 p.m.