Eva Funderburgh is a Seattle-based sculptor with a Bachelor’s of Science and Art from Carnegie Mellon University. After earning her degree in 2005, she returned to her birthplace of Seattle where she found her voice through working in ceramics, drawn to its mix of control and unpredictability. Her love of these aspects of clay are especially seen through her choice to wood fire her ceramic sculptures, a communal process that produces unique results. In 2010, she was honored to be an artist in residence in Denmark at the Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center, an experience that inspired her to revisit interest in public installation work which she had begun to developed during her studies.

After the residency, Eva was selected to attend Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture Public Art Boot Camp in 2015. This experience along with the residency expanded the scope of her work to include installation and bronze casting in addition to continuing to develop and push the boundaries in her work in ceramics. She now teaches bronze casting part time at Pratt Fine art Center and is a full time sculptor working in public art, installation, ceramics, and cast bronze. In 2019 she was delighted to return to Guldagergaard for a second residency to help further her practice.

The last few years have been extremely active and exciting. In 2021 and 2022 Eva had solo shows at the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild in Pittsburgh and the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. In 2023 Eva built her own wood fired kiln for her sculptures and her colleagues’ pottery, a long awaited goal. A massive endeavor, this project was paid for via a successful crowdfunding campaign that raised more than $45,000.

2025 CV

 

Artist Statement

 In myths, logic operates with different rules. Cows are traded for beans, tricksters steal stars, and women are seduced by swans. No one asks why. Things happen this way because this is the way that things happen. This simple and absurd “rightness of being” appears repeatedly in my work. Beasts proudly carry moons and suns, and cities sprout from the backs of serene monsters. 

  At the same time, my simple, emotive forms allow me to explore the animal nature of humanity. We eat, we strive, we encounter conflict and companionship. My beasts, in their simplicity, stumble through the same behaviors. I use these stylized beasts to tackle such universal experiences in a way both familiar and foreign at the same time. 

  Although my work is deliberately non-human, it’s hard to think of a more apt way of describing human kind than the intersection of myth and biology.