About Me
My work is guided by a meditation on change and impermanence, alongside a deep fascination with geological weathering and natural monuments. I sculpt collaboratively with clay, letting it guide my body down the paths of its development. Throughout my process, I work intuitively and embrace the unknown, adding and subtracting material fluidly and utilizing the unpredictability of atmospheric firing.
The diverse landscapes of my childhood – rocky shores and mountain ranges, temperate forests and river valleys, tidal pools and restless seas – form a rich reservoir of tactile memories that inform my work. As I sculpt, my hands bring tangibility to present emotions as I excavate the terrains of my past, externalizing my internal realm in clay.
I seek solace in temporality and challenge the impulse to seek comfort in permanence. I imagine breathing bodies as geological formations: living records of the experiences and influences that have shaped them over time. My work investigates how seemingly unchangeable entities can be altered drastically by minuscule, repetitive actions. It ponders the human incapacity to observe gradual decay as it occurs, despite being connected through our inevitable surrender to the forces of nature.
Kade Helin-Burnette grew up in Livingston, Montana and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, amongst a handful of other places. He has been devoted to artmaking since a young age. In 2017, he attended a semester at the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts in Paros, Greece before beginning undergraduate studies at St Olaf College. During the summers, Kade maintained his artistic practice by attending local life drawing sessions, completing portrait commissions, painting en plein-air, and working as a production potter. Throughout undergrad, Kade worked in the St Olaf Theater scenic shop and in 2023, functioned as the set designer and lead scenic artist for a full-scale production through the Anna K. Bonde Apprenticeship Award.
Kade graduated from St Olaf College in 2022 with a B.A. in Studio Art and was awarded an Emerging Artist residency. During the year-long residency, Kade also worked as the Ceramics Studio Technician. Presently, he is pursuing his second year of post-baccalaureate studies in ceramics at Indiana University Southeast. Kade has exhibited work in galleries across the country and was recently honored to receive second place in the Clay National XVIII at Carbondale Clay Center and the Chancellor’s Award in the 2024 IUS Student Juried Show.
