In I Remember, Michael Guerra Foerster explores ideas of intimacy, separation, solitude, and love through unfired clay sculptures called Floops. This work speaks specifically to the artist’s relationship with his mother. The presence of plants in the gallery space make reference to their connection through gardening and nurturing, which stands symbolic for the effects that kindness and love can have. In contrast, the cold, broken clay forms exist as manifestations of the artist’s own difficulty connecting to or embodying more altruistic ideas that seem to come so easily to his mother and others. Unfired clay also contains a history or lifecycle, where unlike fired ceramic work it will one day fall apart and cease to exist as it does currently. Through that materiality of this medium, the artist makes reference to the sad brevity of connections and relationships. 

 

Small ceramic planters and clay sculptures are also scattered throughout the gallery. Contained within the planters are plants cultivated in the artist's own home, propagated from plants the artist’s mother gifted to him. The sculptures on the other hand are seed bombs, meant to be discarded in greenspaces, where they will gradually fall apart and give birth to wildflowers come spring. Both of these kinds of work are free to the visitors as a gift from the artist, in the spirit of the altruistic values he learned from his mother.

 

'I Remember' was on display at Brick Gallery in December of 2022.