Chris Stoddard Relief — Second Nature Montana

pop-up gallery and studio in Bozeman, Montana.

CHRIS STODDARD’S AVAILABLE WORKS HERE.

UPCOMING EXHIBITION: CHRIS STODDARD / “Relief” / December 12-19

“Relief” is a solo exhibition by Bozeman based artist Chris Stoddard.
Opening reception is December 12th, 2025, 5-8pm, with a 30-minute artist talk at 6:30pm.
(December 13 - 19 / by appointment only)

PRESS RELEASE

“And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?”
––Walt Whitman

Second Nature Gallery is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of artist Chris Stoddard. “Relief” brings together a series of ceramic drawings and sculptures that explore bodily constraints and limitations—and how each body, with its specific form and function, shapes the ways we relate to one another.

Stoddard’s early understanding of bodies began with watching her older brother move through the world. Throughout their childhood, her brother wore a tightly confining orthopedic brace to reshape his spine, the strangeness of the device and the awareness of his discomfort deeply affecting her. In the sculptures called Ascend, Stoddard turns that memory into a series of vertebra-like clay forms held together by metal rods. At the top of each column is a candle—a holding place for fire, energy, and light.

In the Bust series, Stoddard abstracts the torso into vessel forms, incorporating rusted rods and found natural materials to imagine new functions for the body. In works called Relief, she creates a life-sized inward relief of her brother’s torso, as though his body had pressed directly into the clay. These large torsos transform again. This time the body becomes stages for relating: smaller, fractured figures appear to move across the surface—gesturing, almost dancing. In Stoddard’s ceramic drawings like Imprint, Shadow, and Childhood, Stoddard creates small clay achromatic portraits with minimal touches of color, arranged like comic strips, exploring memories with her brother and the duality of body and soul.

Growing up, Stoddard was taught that one’s “real” self could be fully known in a spiritual world after death—freed from the body, the spirit could find refuge and relief. In this exhibition, Stoddard is driven by empathy for our bodies and a desire to find relief from their physical barriers—but to find it here, now, in life.

The exhibition asks: How do we relate to bodies that don’t function like ours? How do we meet the lived physical experiences of the people we love when their realities may be inaccessible, inscrutable, or entirely different from our own? How do we truly connect?

Through clay’s physical resistance, the unpredictability of firing, the use of memory, observation, and found objects, Stoddard carves out and builds her own language of relief—one shaped by the body, and one that reaches beyond it.

ABOUT CHRIS STODDARD

Chris Stoddard (b. 1972, Pittsburgh, PA) is a ceramic artist based in Bozeman, Montana, whose work bridges geology, chemistry, and generational craft knowledge through clay. Her work has been exhibited across the United States, including at the Southern Utah Museum, the Bozeman Museum of Art, and Radius Gallery, and she was an artist-in-residence at Tinworks and Basin Art Residency in 2025. Stoddard’s first solo exhibition will take place at Second Nature Gallery in December 2025, followed by another solo show at the Emerson Center for the Arts and Culture in summer 2026. In addition to her artistic practice, she is a professor of Economics at Montana State University in Bozeman.

LIMITED EDITION
RELIEF TOTE BAG

Every exhibition we make a limited edition memento. This one is a tote bag that celebrates our Winter 2025 exhibition “Relief” by Chris Stoddard.

16 x 14 inches.

Pre-order to pick-up during exhibition (or select ship)

*ALL PROCEEDS WILL BE DONATED TO EAGLE MOUNT BOZEMAN.

IMAGE LIST

Bust I (front) , 2025, stoneware and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$325

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com.

Bust I (front), 2025, stoneware and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$325

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com.

Bust I (back) , 2025, stoneware and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$325

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com.

Imprint III, 2025, stoneware and underglaze, 5 x 4 x .5 inches.

SOLD

Imprint I, 2025, stoneware, underglaze, acrylic, 9.5 x 6 x 1 inches.

$175

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Imprint II, 2025, stoneware, underglaze and glaze, 5.5 x 4.25 x .5 inches.

SOLD

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Bust II (front), 2025, porcelain, wild clay glaze and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$325

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com.

Bust II (back) , 2025, porcelain, wild clay glaze and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$325

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com.

Ascend (Small), 2025, porcelain, glaze, steel rod, 10 x 4 x 4 inches..

$95

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Ascend (Medium), 2025, porcelain, glaze, steel rod, 19 x 4 x 4 inches.

$190

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Ascend (Large), 2025, porcelain, glaze, steel rod, 38 x 4 x 4 inches.

$350

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com.

Interior, 2025, stoneware and underglaze, 6.5 x 6.5 x .5 inches.

SOLD

Shadow I, 2025, stoneware, underglaze and basalt, 7.5 x 5 x .5 inches.

SOLD

Look Back, 2025, stoneware, underglaze, 7.5 x 5 x .5 inches.

$125

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Bust III (front), 2025, porcelain and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$375

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com.

Bust III (back), 2025, porcelain and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$325

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com.

Bust III (front), 2025, porcelain and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$325

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.c

Childhood I, 2025, stonewave and glaze, 4 x 3 x .5 inches.

SOLD

BUY NOW

Childhood II, 2025, stoneware, underglaze and glaze, 4 x 3 x .5 inches.

SOLD

BUY NOW

Linked, 2025, stoneware, underglaze, glaze, 4 x 3 x .5 inches.

SOLD

BUY NOW

Bust V (back), 2025, basalt and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$325

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com.

Bust V (front), 2025, basalt and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$325

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com.

Burst V (back), 2025, basalt and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$325

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com.

Burst V (front), 2025, basalt and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$325

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com.

Shadow II, 2025, stoneware, underglaze and glaze, 5.5 x 4.25 x .5 inches.

SOLD

BUY NOW

Shadow III, 2025, stoneware and glaze, 6.5 x 4 x .75 inches.

SOLD

BUY NOW

Imprint V, 2025, stonewave and glaze, 4 x 3 x .5 inches.

$75

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Burst IV (front), 2025, porcelain and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$325

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com.

Burst IV (back), 2025, porcelain and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$325

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com

Burst IV (back), 2025, porcelain and found object, 8 x 9 x 5 inches.

$325

BUY NOW

* Write piece title when buying with Venmo.
* No Venmo? Contact artist directly at chris.stoddard.art@gmail.com.

Relief I, 2025, stoneware, underglaze, basalt, 17 x 12 x 2 inches.

$350

BUY NOW

Inside the Brace, 2025, plaster, 19 x 11 x 7 inches.

NFS

Relief II, 2025, stoneware, underglaze, basalt, 20 x 15 x 1.5 inches.

$395

BUY NOW

SECOND NATURE GALLERY