About Lauren Eckert
Lauren Eckert is a multimedia object maker and illustrator from southern New Jersey.  She works in fields such as digital fabrication, video, audio, and robotics and brings this research back to her creative home, in the crafts disciplines. She uses the tools and materials of industry—metal, computers, screens, 3D printing, and code—as a means to witness the machine’s collaborative relationship with people and thought.  As a result of this experience, her objects and digital works come from, look towards, and suggest her visions for anticipated versions of the future.

Lauren attended Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia, where she received her BFA in Metals/Jewelry/CAD-CAM in 2019. She has received awards including a Shapeways Education Grant, the Temple University 2019 Rio Grande Student Award, and a Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) Conference Student Scholarship. Her work was included in the 2018 SNAG Jewelry and Metals Survey and has been exhibited in venues such as the Wayne Arts Center, Wayne, PA; Nazareth College Arts Center, Rochester, NY; and Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. In 2018, she curated the show, The Virtual Hand, for Temple University. To learn more about Lauren’s work, visit https://lauren-eckert.com/.

Lauren’s residency at HCCC is generously underwritten by Sara and Bill Morgan.

About Brian Vu
Brian Vu is a multidisciplinary artist born in North Texas. His approach to ceramics addresses the coexistence of the semi-permanent and the ephemeral, as well as the improvisation of memory with the mundane and domestic. He works in a wide variety of mediums, such as ceramic sculpture, dance performance, painting, and impermanent installation, to explore these themes. Minimalism, color, and taking up large volumes of space are motifs that he uses to frame his work.

In his current work, Brian is creating and utilizing ceramic props or stand-ins that reference the domestic household and the daily functions performed within those spaces. He is particularly interested in rectilinear spaces, which are associated with anthropology, aesthetic, function, space, and architecture, and with the relationships he creates between the ceramic object and the rectangle.

Brian holds a BA with a concentration in ceramics and contemporary dance from Bennington College and a MA in ceramics from Cranbook Academy of Art, where he studied under Ian McDonald. Brian was nominated for the Emerging Artist Award and received the New Beginnings Award from Cranbrook and Mercedes-Benz Financial Services. In the summer of 2018, Brian was the artist-in-residence at Locust Projects in the Miami Design District and exhibited lung tone_ mirror print_, a solo show merging both clay and dance performance.

Brian’s residency is generously underwritten by Leslie and Brad Bucher.