Interdisciplinary “Hybrid Skins” Accepted into Artfields 2018

Hybrid Skins, an installation created by Associate Professor of Architecture Jefferson Ellinger and Assistant Professor of Art Thomas Schmidt, with graduate student Paul Stockhoff, has been accepted into the Artfields 2018 southeastern regional art exhibition and competition. Artfields takes place in Lake City, South Carolina, April 20-28 and showcases work by nearly 400 artists from the 12-state region of the southeastern United States. Works are judged by a five-member jury and are eligible for cash prizes, including a $50,000 Grand Prize. Hybrid Skins will be on view in the Jones-Carter Gallery.

Hybrid Skins explores the aesthetic and conceptual implications of merging ancient analog and contemporary digital methods – low-tech and high-tech – in the production of porcelain and polymer architectural skins. The wall-sized installation is comprised of fiberglass-backed ceramic tiles, fired in the traditional way, but cast from variegated molds digitally designed and created with the KUKA robotic arm. Cracks in the porcelain, produced during and after firing, form a spectacular surface pattern that is illuminated from behind. Funded with “Research Through Making” grants by the College of Arts + Architecture’s Digital Arts Center, Hybrid Skins was first exhibited in the Projective Eye Gallery at UNC Charlotte Center City in the 2016 Digital Dialogues exhibition.