Inga Clough Falterman was born in 1973 in Richmond, Virginia. She received her Bachelor’s of Arts in Art History and Studio Art from the University of Richmond in 1994, with an emphasis in Printmaking. She worked as an environmental educator for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in remote areas of the Eastern Shore of the Delmarva Peninsula, and then took the bus to Brooklyn, New York, to study Printmaking at Pratt Institute. She had the unique privilege of making prints under the tutelage of Clare Romano and John Ross in Venice, Italy, in the summer of 1997. Until she graduated in 1998, she worked in the print shop and as a bike messenger in Manhattan. Fortunately, she was hired by the Art Institute of Colorado in Denver in 1998, and lived for the mountains until she met her husband, who is a charter captain in the Gulf of Mexico.
Because you can’t catch tuna in the Rockies, she relocated to southeastern Louisiana. She has taught Printmaking at the University of New Orleans and Xavier University, but also worked as a deckhand when she wasn’t painting or working on copper. Needless to say, she likes to travel.
Presently, Inga and her little family lives on the Gulf Coast of Texas, where her husband follows blue marlin all over the Gulf of Mexico. Inga continues to paint and make all kinds of things out of their happy home.
Artist’s Statement:
Fascinated by things inanimate or non-human, I find myself working with images derived from reality that impress with me with their sheer mass and strength or their overall persistence and tolerance. I am not quite misanthropic, as I am usually attracted to objects with human attributes; most recently offshore oil rigs, refinery cans, and railroad spikes. All of these things have individual characteristics, change with the light of day and weather, and endure any hardship that comes along their way. They are stubborn, strong, and beautiful in a functional way; sadly I am finding the best of human qualities only in things non-human.
When I do include animals, human or otherwise, they are not always living; often they are skeletons, literally or metaphorically, of what they once were. Remains provide a memory of strength, intuition, and beauty instead of morbidity. They celebrate the life that once was, not to the animal alone but also to the world in which the animal once was. A skeleton, in the best sense, is a tangible testament to memory. In remembering, wishing and regretting can exist. Wishing brings hope to the future, and therefore my images are hope for the days coming of something as good as the past if not better.
Humans have moments of grace, certainly, but are perhaps too comfortable in convention and too seated in hypocrisies. I am not without fault. However, I never have believed that human nature holds much worth unless presented in a way which alludes to our once wildness. I simply wish I could be as strong as bridge, as beautiful as a shadow, and as efficient as a fish.
E-mail Inga
