Be prepared to warp into a fairy tale land when stepping inside ARTS Space Obispo located in The Creamery in downtown San Luis Obispo. With a dash of self-reflection, a handful of sensuality and three parts small animal, artist Chloe White has opened a portal and seemingly transformed the art gallery into a surreal realm, where statues of frog people, bird people and cigar-smoking fish greet you as if you’ve fallen down the rabbit’s hole.
Musing on dreams for inspiration, White sketches and sculpts half-animal creatures that look as though they leapt from the pages of an early 20th-century children’s story. There are diving and pirouetting frogs made of clay. A woman and fish cast in bronze share a clawfoot bathtub. Look up and come face-to-face with a swimming frog in mid-breast stroke hanging from the ceiling by a colorless thread. And a woman posing in front of a 15-foot-high mural dressed in a scaly shroud wearing a fish head for a hat sets the scene for White’s anthropomorphic wonderland.
Each piece acts as a focal point to this Briton’s first-ever exhibit in the United States, “Clay Dreams: Salmon Slippers and Star Gazy Pie.”
“‘Clay Dreams’ is the name,” White said, as she moved about, pointing to her work, then back to the title on the wall. “‘Salmon Slippers’ comes from — well, look, let me show you — see, my fish wear shoes; I have a shoe fetish. And ‘Star Gazy Pie’ is a Cornish dish — although I’m not Cornish.”
Stargazy Pie is a culinary hodgepodge of fish, vegetables, butter, eggs and spices topped by a pastry crust; it is Southern English comfort food. And as a garnish, fish heads stick out from atop the crust gazing at the stars.
White said coming up with a name for the exhibit included both the gallery’s and the artist’s brainwork.
“It is an interesting title and captures my artwork’s essence,” White said, looking up at the silver and white letters pasted on a peach-colored wall.
As a child, White suffered from asthma, which made playing sports difficult. Admitting she isn’t — and never was — “sporty,” the sculptor likens her art-making process to athletic prowess.
“One time my son, Leif, made a bet with my husband while playing golf. He said for $40 he would make an eagle. Well, he did it! And, after sinking (the putt), he said he just knew it would happen. Same for me. When I’m painting or sculpting, I feel like I’m in the zone; it just feels right. Sometimes I know where (the piece) is going, or I know which line to stroke and where,” White said.
When beginning a piece — which from start-to-finish can either take two weeks or one month — White uses her own body as a starting point.
“I often start out by sketching an image, which has been coming to me either as a dream or a day dream in response to something I’ve observed or felt, and from the sketch I move to clay,” White said. “I start to feel how the form is going to develop — what size and shape it will take — from feeling the weight and the texture. I enjoy adding tubular limbs and arranging them to create the desired sense of movement. Then I try out the movement myself and incorporate it into the sculpture.”
The artist’s resume is backed by years of experience.
At 16, White illustrated books in Brighton, England, her hometown. She left for college at age 17 and now holds a degree in fine arts from the University of the West of England, Bristol. Her artwork stems from her unique childhood.
“I grew up a Jehovah’s Witness,” White said. “And once I moved away to college, it was like — PSSHEW — you know; my life opened up. I was always worried about stepping over boundaries set forth by religion, by societal norms; it was a big source of anxiety. But I learned to have faith in knowing that what I was doing was right, and as long as I had faith, I would be OK.”
Before trading her paintbrush for ceramics and metals, White painted on canvas using oils and acrylics.
“With sculpture, I am free and loose,” White said,” standing in black boots covered in clay dust. “There are no boundaries, no edges to stop my expression.”
Her blue eyes beamed with the same trance-like stare of her hand-molded figures as she explained why showing her artwork in public brings strange but rewarding feelings. She said her work will reach those who share similar feelings.
“My expression in art is private; it’s personal. I am not a zealot, but I believe everybody is essentially good, like animals. I share my art because it heals me; it is therapeutic. When I don’t do it, I feel disconnected from myself, like I’m not a complete animal,” White said.
White said she tries not to think about a viewer’s response while creating her artwork because is “inhibits” the creative flow.
“Her work is hypnotic,” gallery-visitor Bob Sachs said. “You can really see the dynamics of the legs, but strength of the fish. It sort of bends the mind.”
While the artwork on display offers diverse interpretation, White said her latest collection is “ugly beautiful.”
“Fortunately, I’m seeing beautiful,” said local large-scale drawer Jamie Bruzenak.
Another gallery-goer, Marnie Parker, described White’s exhibit simply as “mythical.”
When immersed in the land of creature oddities, there’s a striking similarity between the artist’s work and the artist herself.
“I guess on some level, they are self-portraits,” White said, brushing her red locks from her shoulder.
The message behind her collection is humility — to accept oneself as-is, which, White said, means recognizing both “good and bad” qualities about the self and working to mold those qualities into a complete product.
“Frogs, in particular, have this vulnerability, yet remain graceful in appearance. Their gaze attracts me and their bodies are soft, like a woman’s,” White said. “We should love and appreciate that.”
The carnality of animal instinct is evident in the artist’s work, and she draws energy from her own intuition, projecting it into each piece.
“We’ve forgotten we are animals, and just ‘cause we construct things doesn’t mean we’re better or separate from them. We’re no different, only trained to act that way,” White said.
White landed in San Luis Obispo by chance, and, sipping a latté from a compostable cup, the artist described her “serendipitous” de-boarding.
White said while riding southbound on a train from San Francisco to San Dieogo with her husband, Tony, and then 3-month-old son, their family getaway to visit friends was cut short. The couple tried unsuccessfully in stopping their son’s continued crying, so the trio randomly stopped-off at the next station, which happened to be in San Luis Obispo.
Fate is a recurring theme in this artist’s life, who teaches her craft locally at Montessori Children’s School.
“One of our board members heard Chloe speak at Steynberg Gallery,” ARTS Obipso executive director Marta Peluso said. “We liked her work, and it was what we we’re looking for at the time. We are very excited to have her first exhibit in our gallery.”
White gives thanks for the support from her family and friends, specifically fellow artists Josephine Laing and Frank Zika.
Chloe White’s exhibit runs April 2-29 at ARTS Space Obispo located at 570 Higuera St. (Be sure to inquire about the fly on the wall.) Admission is free but donations are accepted.