MixedMedia

Combines. Collage. Assemblage. Photomontage. Artists around the world took a big turn from traditional expression at the beginning of the 2oth century, harkening a new era of dynamic experimentation with combinations of wet media and objects. In other words, mixed media. Corks, paper, paint, wire, plaster, cloth, rock. Whatever. These and just about any material you can imagine are subject to appropriation by the contemporary artist – to create among the most charged, startling and vibrant works of our time.

Duchamp. Twombly. Rauschenberg. Fleming and Lapointe. Some of the greatest visionaries of our time have combined artifacts and images, media and surfaces to create vibrant tableaus that deliver irreproducible effects of color, texture, and sensation.

Imagine an entire building transformed into a three dimensional sculpture in which every object, every image has meaning and intent. That is the work of Canadian installation artists Martha Fleming and Lyne Lapointe. We think of this a mixed media. In Nigeria, young artists like Uche Edochie combine cloth, newspaper clipping, paint, string and wood dust to striking effect. We think of this as mixed media. In Vermont (USA), the “folk artist” Wilma Lovely glues buttons, radio parts, bits of glass and metallic objects to slate roofing tiles and other surfaces. We think of this as mixed media.

Its a global artistic experience – a vibrant conversation held through locally available materials and supplies. Its a conversation we encourage everyone to be a part of.

MixedMedia.us is dedicated to two activities: to chronicle this global conversation and explore ways to apply this technique to development – education, income generation, and waste reduction/re-use among them. You are warmly invited to register and write for MixedMedia. Spammers, trolls, and other abusers of good will shall be sent to charm school in Alabama with a bunch of screaming 6-year olds.