MixedMedia

While in New York recently for a “Greening the Arts” symposium [see below], I had the very good fortune to meet an artist, preservationist, and self-described “recycling fanatic” Victoria Romanoff. Touring her converted firestation – which serves as her home, studio, and office – I was struck by how full and well-lived her life is, a life reflected in a rich, multilayered perspective so richly conveyed in everything that she produces. The title of this post is inspired by what little I gleaned of her life and work and our shared interest in cities and towns, and our efforts to incorporate their influence into our artwork.

Victoria has this eye for the scuffle, bumps, and scrapes of life that are bound up in a scrap of wood or painted façade alike. Her materia prima is the detritus of decline – joints, pulleys, columns, slats, plugs, rods, handles, adornments and other objects salvaged from the waste-streams of the new-obsessed.

A group show curated by Ms Romanoff, titled “Haven’t We Met Before,” was recently brought down at the Thomkins County Public Library – I wish I’d been there in time to see it! Nonetheless, an exhibition catalogue is available online and I was able to both see a few of the works and get a better sense of the materials that compose her works during our visit.

Most important to me, I was introduced to the range of motifs captured in her dense works. I caught whiffs of the gothic, romantic and even baroque mustiness bound up in these very modern works (Constructivism meets Duchamp with a nod to Rauschenberg’s ‘combines’?). Here is her artist’s statement for the “Haven’t We Met Before” show:

I like to conjure up lost civilizations, improbable resorts, crumbling monuments, over-the-top architectural follies, opinionated statutory and other imaginary settings. Along with that, I enjoy puncturing pomposity and do my best to lead the viewer astray with absurd but hopefully humorous titles. My sculpture is always built from recycled elements: discarded wood, architectural remnants, cardboard tubes, old ropes, washboards and other flotsam and jetsam. The paper mosaics, as well, are reborn from scraps cut out of previous creations.

As far as I can tell, just about all of her materials could be found at historic preservation sites and dumps, which she gives new life through spontaneous composition, clever joinery, and uniform coating treatments. Another interesting aspect of Ms Romanoff’s work is that is serves equally well as functional and decorative works.

One disappointment: there’s not alot of her work online. You’ll have to meet her yourself and seek out every opportunity you can to find her works on view!

[Both images are nicked from the Thompkins County Library exhibition materials and the Havent We Me Before Catalogue]

MixedMedia is all about appropriation – the process of selecting, manipulating, integrating “found” works into new arrangement, compositions. So when I came across the Walker Art Center + Soap Factory = Festival of Appropriation, I was intrigued!

On Thursday November 29, Walker Art Center will host a film collage presentation and Circuit Bending Workshop with Beatrix*JAR (Free Admission, both events)… The exhibition will remain on display throughout the month of November. There are a bunch of great artists participating – take a quick tour:

Andy DuCett, Kyle Fokken, John Grider, Erik T. Ritter, Chad Rutter, Ian Sorlie, Scott Stulen, Michael Thomsen, Asia Ward, Greg Carr, Eric William Carroll, Greg Gossel, Brant Kingman, Suzanne Kosmalski,Cory McNally, Coleman Miller, Mari Richards, Sheryl Tuorila.

July has gotten me back in the studio after a June’s worth of cleaning. This month also finds me working to develop some study aids – exercises in color, simplicity, texture. Small constructions on wood panel that reflect some principle of good design and technique.

One of the people who is presently inspiring me in this work is an artist whose work I encountered in Dakar, Senegal at a small seaside gallery in an area known as “Almadies.” This is a place by the chopping ocean between the city and airport. In the past it was a slumbering microsuburb of Dakar, where a few die-hard surfers would face the rocky shores and strong tidal surges. A few restaurants, shops and many modest homes lined the coastline. Today it is quiet development for the modest, more adventuresome tourist. Small hotels, artisan shops, and humble restaurants serving up fresh sea fare have filled in much of what were blank spaces in the expaning urban tapestry.

It was among the meandering streets of this calm retreat that the artist I know only as Madou has a second floor gallery (“Galerie Accent Yoff Virage”) in which he shows and sells his works alongside those of his wife Claudia B. Madou, trained as a geologist according to my mother who lives in Dakar, creates wonderfully textured panels of varying sizes in rich, deep tones of orange an blue. These panels are composed of fields of painted cloth, sand and string that are combined into eerily evocative works that conjure associations with scars, tribes, desert canvassas (tents perhaps) and ancient discoveries (“mummies” entombed in desert sands perhaps).

Anyway, over the last few weeks I have been working with some of these and other materials to both reproduce and further develop his effect. More on that as the works emerge. For now, the work shown here is a simple construction of paper, string and bark cloth (Uganda) on painted wood (acrylic).