Art is often more than just a visual experience. These seven artists all have a deeper meaning and concept to their work.
I create still life assemblages by combining my organic clay sculptures with items curated from my collections of found objects, personal images and collage materials. I enjoy being able to breathe new life into the things others regard as trash. Repurposing upcycled objects keeps me aware of how much waste we produce as a society.
The assemblages are interior self-portraits that reflect investigations into my relationships with people, places and perceptions. By placing transformed odds and ends into a dialog with my artwork, I explore the ways objects and images guide us in ascribing meaning to our lives.
Being the director of an art program in Europe, my inspiration is readily at hand: folk patterns, tile work, flora, maps, menus, brochures. The texts that I include, and the words that I choose to highlight are no accident. They compliment the sense of place that each piece conveys.
The visual tension, however, comes from me internally. Splitting my life between three places (Las Vegas, New Hampshire, and Europe) means that I am never whole. With the inspirations from each place, comes a void from the lack of the other two. When travel and language rich, I am without family. Where I have colleagues, I have no foreign influence. The partial words and embroidered fracking is my attempt to symbolize this emotional fissure that is ever-present.
The wide open spaces and ever changing movement and rhythms in “big skies” captivated me once I resettled after a major life overhaul. They became my perfect metaphor for stages in life expressed in a series of triptychs and diptychs of bright, textured sky-scapes.
The “space in between” the panels symbolize transition phases. Glittering threads run through these open spaces and connect the panels to represent what we carry forward with us, a continuum in life. Each sky-scape is grounded with a bed of seeds or sprouts rising up to greet the radiant beams of light above. Ethereal gold and copper leaf shimmer across the metaphorical scenes.
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The core of my work is inspired by the human experience and driven by the need to make sense of both internal monologues and external dialogues.
This work is narrative with a dash of surrealism and based on the concept of connecting to oneself and our deepest desires. The hopeful optimism of each theme encourages the viewer to create their world in an image that brings them happiness; creating their own rules and carving out their own paths.
Through the “Eye Contact” series, I am investigating the link between autism and social media. While those on the spectrum can benefit from using social media to connect with others, the general population seems to be communicating in a more autistic way as a result of using the same technology.
I’ve enlisted the help of Facebook friends, who’ve sent me photos of their eyes looking away from the camera. These have become the basis for the work. The result is a pixilated glass surface similar to the screens of social media, with sets of eyes that never quite meet ours.
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My art reflects my dreams, moods and feelings. I work from imagination, using elements from nature and mythology. Classical training has helped me truly see nature so I can accurately give these visions form. I have a strong admiration for the Symbolist art movement including painters Odelon Redon and Gustav Moreau.
I paint digitally using a Wacom tablet, digital pens and painting software. I’ve worked with digital tools for many years but have just recently started to exhibit my work. It makes me feel good while I’m painting and I hope my paintings make others feel good too.
Everything is connected on our “spaceship” earth. I’m interested in the consequences of human behavior. Are we responsible for all living forms and the health of our environment if we are to be the most intelligent species?
I’m passionate about creating delightful iconic artwork consisting of and featuring endangered and recently extinct species while using old social publications documenting peoples interests and having those temptations fade into the background! My artwork reflects on our society. My mission is to inspire recipients to raise questions about improvement and inclusion and raise awareness through my artwork.
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