Tracey Cockrell

Adjunct Associate Professor of MFA in Studio Art

Dept. : MFA

tcockrell@meca.edu

“In a way, we can describe thoughts as rhythmic pulsations, and the way that we think is to leap from one rhythmic pulsation to another to create images, ideas. To approach a concept as one would a form, from differing points of view, is a kind of sculptural thinking——a dance, that navigates from one distinct vantage point to another. My sound sculptures and installations explore the origins of language, challenge the authority of language for making meaning. I am interested in synesthesia and the poetic potential of the decay of language through acts of translation. My creative practice involves a synthesis of sculpture, experimental music, and feminist linguistic theory. My current research is about the complex relationships between language and landscape, psychoacoustics and the subjectivity of place.”

Tracey Cockrell earned a BA from the College of William and Mary and an MFA from
University of California, Berkeley. She was a graduate fellow at Skowhegan School of Painting
and Sculpture, studied sculpture at Virginia Commonwealth University, and is a trained
horticulturist. Her sound art has been featured in radio broadcasts on KBOO and KPFA through alternative programs such as ‘A Different Nature’ and ‘Discreet Music’ and heard in live performances at the Annual Music for People and Thingamajigs Festivals in San Francisco, and the Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle. Her sculptures have exhibited at Woodstock Art Association & Museum, Worcester AIP Biennial, Boston Center for the Arts, Oakland Arts Council, the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, the Fitchburg Art Museum, and ICON Contemporary Art. She has received grant funding from Regional Arts & Culture Council in Portland, Oregon, Music USA Meet the Composer for her experiments in sound art, and Fund for Art Investigation & Research Grant for travel research forstudy in India specific to the making of the sarangi.

Laurels
Directed Poemophone: A Cacophonous Collaboration & Reading Series, featuring 3 days of collaboration and live performance with national and international writers, musicians, and visual artists.

Featured in Sculpture Magazine, ArtNewEngland, the Boston Sunday Globe, WGBH tv’s
‘Greater Boston Arts,’ Maine Public Radio’s ‘Maine Things Considered,’ and The Art Section,
among other journals.

Artist residencies include The Tides Institute & Museum of Art, Fiore Art Center (Maine
Farmland Trust), Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Oregon College of Art and Craft, Hewnoaks Artist Colony, and Leland Iron Works. Received grant funding from Regional Arts & Culture Council in Portland, Oregon, Music USA Meet the Composer for her experiments in sound art, and Fund for Art Investigation & Research Grant for travel research for study in India specific to the making of the sarangi.

View Tracey's website.