|
WHEN MATTER
TALKS BACK Rebecca Muller Thursday, September 5 through Saturday, September 28, 2024 Opening Reception: Thursday, September 5, 5–7:00 pm Art Forum Online: September 19, 7:30 pm |
CLICK BELOW TO SEE MORE
Image Gallery Art Forum Video Dialogue with the Artist: Thursday, September 5, 2–4:30 pm; Friday, September 6, 4:30–7 pm; Friday, September 20, 4:30–7 pm; Friday, September 27, 4:30–7 pm Artist's Website |
Rebecca Muller, Printed Matter (detail 2), metal, grit, pigment, wax
WHEN MATTER TALKS BACK
Rebecca Muller
When Matter Talks Back, a mixed media installation by Rebecca Muller, combines inked prints, hand-poured “paper” of acrylic medium, and 3-dimensional assemblages of eroded organic and inorganic material including grit, ground duff, rusted metal, plastic, pigment, caulking cord, bits of wood, and wire. For the first time, she also brings words into the multi-media mix, hanging written vignettes throughout the installation.
Muller admits to a “long-standing love affair with debris” and with the various bits and pieces that are left behind, discarded, overlooked, or passed by. But not just any random scrap finds its way into her installation. For material to become Matter, it must have some animate or interactive quality. “Selected Matter must reflect the impact of time, weather, blunt force, things lost or discarded,” she explains. “Matter must ‘strike the eye’, beckon, carry ambiguity, evoke a sense of uncertainty, or convey a feeling of dislocation. It causes the body to pause. It challenges one to wonder and be surprised.”
For the installation at Gallery A3, Muller makes things with Matter. Moving across media, she constructs large- and small-scale assemblages, composes inked prints, and pours thin sheets of acrylic medium. She then arranges these components in clusters or suites that seem to engage, echo, and amplify each other. Matter, in short, talks back.
Rebecca Muller
When Matter Talks Back, a mixed media installation by Rebecca Muller, combines inked prints, hand-poured “paper” of acrylic medium, and 3-dimensional assemblages of eroded organic and inorganic material including grit, ground duff, rusted metal, plastic, pigment, caulking cord, bits of wood, and wire. For the first time, she also brings words into the multi-media mix, hanging written vignettes throughout the installation.
Muller admits to a “long-standing love affair with debris” and with the various bits and pieces that are left behind, discarded, overlooked, or passed by. But not just any random scrap finds its way into her installation. For material to become Matter, it must have some animate or interactive quality. “Selected Matter must reflect the impact of time, weather, blunt force, things lost or discarded,” she explains. “Matter must ‘strike the eye’, beckon, carry ambiguity, evoke a sense of uncertainty, or convey a feeling of dislocation. It causes the body to pause. It challenges one to wonder and be surprised.”
For the installation at Gallery A3, Muller makes things with Matter. Moving across media, she constructs large- and small-scale assemblages, composes inked prints, and pours thin sheets of acrylic medium. She then arranges these components in clusters or suites that seem to engage, echo, and amplify each other. Matter, in short, talks back.
Titled Beauty (detail), acetate leaf, acrylic pigment, grit, metal
|
Installation View (foreground: Cosmic Beach; background: Dangle), photopolymer print overlays on gampi paper, acetate leaf, metal
|
ART FORUM ONLINE
Thursday, September 19 at 7:30
In an online forum titled: Virtual and Matterly Images Meet Up, Rebecca Muller will join her colleague Howard R. Barnhart, a Maine-based digital composer of image sets and stop motion videos created from re-purposed “found” photo images and drawings. Rebecca Muller’s gritty mixed media installation will be contrasted with her colleague, Howard R. Barnhart’s provocative stop motion video assemblages which combine manipulations of photographs, illustrations and drawings that create visually active concepts. (Click here for his Vimeo page.) Beginning with a concept, he searches online for available images and audio tracks that evoke it. Barnhart asserts that Concept becomes “both thing and action, entity and process, noun and verb.” The two artists have been sharing and critiquing each other’s work for nearly 50 years and will discuss parallels in their approaches.
Preregister for this free program by clicking here.
This Art in Community II program is supported in part by grants from the Amherst Cultural Council and the Springfield Cultural Council, local agencies, which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
Thursday, September 19 at 7:30
In an online forum titled: Virtual and Matterly Images Meet Up, Rebecca Muller will join her colleague Howard R. Barnhart, a Maine-based digital composer of image sets and stop motion videos created from re-purposed “found” photo images and drawings. Rebecca Muller’s gritty mixed media installation will be contrasted with her colleague, Howard R. Barnhart’s provocative stop motion video assemblages which combine manipulations of photographs, illustrations and drawings that create visually active concepts. (Click here for his Vimeo page.) Beginning with a concept, he searches online for available images and audio tracks that evoke it. Barnhart asserts that Concept becomes “both thing and action, entity and process, noun and verb.” The two artists have been sharing and critiquing each other’s work for nearly 50 years and will discuss parallels in their approaches.
Preregister for this free program by clicking here.
This Art in Community II program is supported in part by grants from the Amherst Cultural Council and the Springfield Cultural Council, local agencies, which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.