Hidden Metaphors of the (Clay) Body in the work of Kimberly LaVonne
Kimberly LaVonne’s conversation with Gisela Morales centers around the metaphysical
history and presumptions placed on the bodies of women and considered through clay.
Kimberly LaVonne
Feast Your Eyes, 201 7
Kimberly LaVonne’s work is an examination of the unseen body through ceramic object.
Employing organic bodies both in concept and medium produces work with flesh and organlike
qualities punctuated with Illustrations of saint-like female figures, which denote a need
for self discovery and introspection. Fluctuating as specimens and relics, her sculptures
deconstruct the human form into physical parts of divine abstraction, revealing what is not
real into distorted and faintly familiar anatomy. In so doing, LaVonne awakens a new sense
of wonder surrounding the investigation of the body. One that acknowledges the human body’s
tension between scientific endeavor and religious belief, and underscores the use of women in
building western anatomical knowledge.
Kimberly LaVonne Sadness Is A Blessing, 2017
Motivated by the dichotomies present in the study of the body, LaVonne combines forms and
shapes culled from anatomy books, medical collections, and gothic curiosities with illustrated
references to the narratives of saints and holy women whose internal organs were mythologized
as religious relics. Knowledge of the organs and their functions has been driven by myth, wonder,
taboo and stigma.
Human dissection throughout much of western history was considered sacrosanct. In this way,
LaVonne is drawing a direct lineage to modern science and the taboos that placed limits on it.
Human dissection was normalized as medical and scientific inquiry by the Greeks in the third
century but then saw its decline with the introduction of Christianity. The advent of Roman law
prohibited the dissection and autopsy of the human body in much of Europe.
Instead, Christian culture, predominantly in its Catholic strain, has consolidated its anatomical
understanding around the cult of saints. In their bodies, saints are thought to be present even
after death,, making their corpses a source of protection and magical power. This created a
fascination with saint relics and funerary practices involving the body’s mutilation and
disembowelment. It was not until the 14th century that the study of dissection remerged as a
valid pursuit. This is the moment in history from which LaVonne’s iconography emerges. Much like
the earliest folios of Fasciculus medicine or da Vinci’s studies on the human form, there is
something inherently romantic in they way she molds form with illustration. Using a high fire clay
body, her work yields rich terracotta forms that transform this history and iconography into
intriguing tactile objects, resulting in a collection of fragmented parts made whole by the female
bodies they represent.
LaVonne’s sculptures appear as perfectly sliced specimens whose flat surfaces provide the
canvas on which organ forms are personified by women. The illustrated figures illuminate
how the objectification of women has been a conduit to systems of knowledge regarding
human physiology. During the time period LaVonne references, european women, and holy
women in particular, appeared not as agents of knowledge, but rather as the objects of
knowledge itself. This dispossession of knowledge has created persisting power structures in
which women are relegated to role of vessels and unwitting participants. By working in
ceramics, the vessel of the work itself is a metaphor for this societal predisposition While
male bodies have become proxies for universality, the sole significance of female bodies has
traditionally resided in the uterus. In the service men’s need to uncover the mystery of
human generation, the uterus became the prefered object of Medieval dissection. As a
result, internal anatomy became intrinsic to the the female body. Female corporal obsession
combined with religious belief collided in the bodies of holy women. Accounts of holy
women’s hearts being mummified, framed, and transformed into relics are the type of
curiosities permeating through LaVonne’s imagination. Within this context, LaVonne’s figures
express a certain level of self awareness, At times the physiological expressions are serene,
self empowered and inviting, while at others they appear introspective, uneasy and
distressed. The juxtaposition of these images onto three dimensional objects provides a
holistic point of view into the forces that continue to shape self perceptions of the body that
oscillate between the physical, functional, abstract, and spiritual.
Kimberly LaVonne We Together Make A Limb , 2017
This essay is part of a series commissioned, in collaboration with Informality Blog, for the
exhibition YET, UNKNOWN at Paragraph Gallery (23 E 12th St, Kansas City, MO 64106)
open from July 27 through August 26, 2017. These pieces, co-edited by Melaney Mitchell
(Founder & Senior Editor of Informality Blog) and Lynnette Miranda (Curator-in-Residence at
Charlotte Street Foundation) focus on a shared goal of bringing the eyes of national writers
to the work of Kansas City-based artists.