i.e. gallery is thrilled to introduce the figurative ceramic works of Michel Angela Petersen. Peterson was born in Great Britain, became a shepherdess on a remote California Island from 1979 - 1984 and found a love for clay and art when mourning her departure from the Island. She later spent  7 years as Artist in Residence in Ventura Harbor Mural Project, California and became a public ceramic artist with some 30 commissioned mural artworks under her belt. The figures she makes are something else. "Icon" is a remarkable  presentation of her hand-built, intuitive work 10 years in the making. They are many layered with a bow to both history and psychology and a deep awareness by the artist of the feminine in our world.

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Icon : The Hinterland

"Ten years of self-imposed solitude experimenting with clay in a small studio on a hill in Bellingham eventually coalesced into a group of female ceramic figures both historical and mythological in character.

Out of step with fashion but in step with my visions and imaginations, I have created a series that is quite intriguing and offers an unusual oversight of femininity in the western historical process. Although the iconography of these figures is ornate and diverse in nature, they all aspire to convey a symbolic message to the viewer about the many aspects integral to the historical process and what it is to be a woman within it. The overlap of history, anthropology, religion, mysticism, sexuality, classicism all colliding in the 21st Century in a group of female figures defies the intellect and presents a unique iconography.

I prefer the subjective world of the soul, or 'Hinterland', and to be immersed in thinking rather than associating with people. I understood from an early age that as a female I could not freely express myself . My father regularly threatened me with the insane asylum for my insights and precociousness.

These female figures are my way of discovering what being a woman consists of, a 'coming out' as it were into my own womanhood.

Many of the figures are dressed in Mantua dresses, a dress designed in Mantua Italy in the 1700's. The dress represents a beautiful armour that both embellishes and protects the figure. The later figures begin to have a grotto in the front of the dress wherein aspects of the figure's psychology and physiognomy begin to appear. 

The last figure in this series is proud and defiant, She knows who she is and what she is about."

Michel Angela Petersen,  2025