Caroline Hatfield’s practice utilizes sculpture, installation, and mixed media to engage with materiality and environment. After completing a Sculpture BFA at The University of Tennessee, she earned an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studio Art from Towson University. Hatfield’s work has been reviewed or included in numerous publications, such as The Washington Post and Alluvian Environmental Journal. She has exhibited artwork nationally and internationally at venues such as The Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC, The Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington, DE, and the CICA Museum in Gimpo, South Korea. Recent solo exhibitions include "Foresights and Futures" at VisArts in Rockville, MD and “Impart” at Lincoln Memorial University in Cumberland Gap, TN. Among her awards and honors, she is a recipient of the Trawick Contemporary Art Prize (2018), a South Arts Cross-Sector Impact Grant (2020), and a Mississippi Arts Commission Visual Artist Fellowship Grant (2023). As Assistant Professor and Area Coordinator of Sculpture at Mississippi State University, she lives and works in Starkville, MS.
Photograph by Megan Bean.
Through sculpture, installation, and images, I explore our perception of landscape as medium and nature as commodity. Observing land use and extractive practices in southern Appalachia has shaped my work to be very materially driven, often temporary and contradictory,in reference to the region’s preserved wilderness and extensively altered environment. This influence converges with my interest in science fiction, which deeply informs my creative process as I consider sci-fi tropes, frameworks, and extrapolations. With moon rocks, martian terrain, coal waste, driftwood, and geological samples, I juxtapose worlds real and imagined. My recent projects utilize materials and subjects associated with near future climate engineering and celestial resource extraction, while evoking more personal sentiments of environment and ecology.