Artist Statement
Madison Audrie Trent’s melancholic work stands at a crossroads between recollection, observation, and imagination as she toes the line between her lived reality and self-constructed narrative. In an existential search for answers, she follows an iterative process of destruction and renewal, representing the psychological and emotional spaces she occupies through hazy oil pastel drawings or stream of consciousness prose; these images are destroyed to become woven forms or borrowed to create ceramic or cast metal objects, while her writing acts as a storied web interlinking each new mutation of conflicted memory.
Haunted by a past that bends, contorts, and festers with time, her images, sculpture, and text sift through the themes of indoctrination vs. self-determination, nurture vs. self-sufficiency, shame and regret vs. acceptance, and fraught familial ties- dandelion wishes, diverting pathways, and descending staircases uncover the interiors of the religious and working-class upbringing that informed her practice. As she ventures into a familiar space she’s never been before, Trent creates an internal world to find a way forward.
Bio
Madison Audrie Trent (b. 1995) is an American artist based in the UK; working across a variety of mediums such as oil pastels, ceramics, and cast metal, Madison’s hazy images and abstracted forms reflect the artist’s emotional and psychological experiences- often as hauntings from her past. She received a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Norwich University of the Arts in 2025, following an Associate’s degree in Liberal Studies with an art emphasis from Southern Maine Community College in 2022. Madison’s recent exhibitions include Free Range, The Truman Brewery (London, UK), and her solo show Somewhere I’ve Never Been/ A Place I Always Am, Norwich University of the Arts (Norwich, 2024). She completed a mural for mental health service users at Northside House last spring and has previously been commissioned by Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust in 2024. Her work is held in private collections across the United States, Canada, and the UK.