Knack for scrap
Two-man show puts recycled materials to artistic use
By Claudia Pardo McFadyen 07/16/2009
Suggestive of giant slices of crystallized rock, L.A.-based artist John Edward Marin’s abstractions, on display at Vita Art Center in Ventura, are best described as having a “marbling” effect. The large paintings are the product of intentional immediacy: Marin pours the paint directly onto the wood panel surfaces without the use of brushes.
Chance and gravity are the main factors in his process, resulting in a visual spontaneity that is thoroughly engrossing. Works such as “Ice Melts,” a dynamic splattering of azure blue on a sea of candied milky white, or “Tight Rope,” a fluid “pour” of dance-like vibrant reds and oranges, have surfaces so lustrous they beg to be touched or — if one would dare — licked. Such attractive glossiness is achieved by the application of an epoxy resin, a clear plastic varnish that Marin applies to seal his paintings.
“Color is where I start,” offers Marin, who frequents home stores for discarded or leftover paint. Led by emotions or memories, Marin chooses the color that best corresponds to his feelings. Marin’s use of reclaimed paint as his medium creates an interesting contrast with his beautifully custom-crafted wood panels — a result of years of experience in carpentry. “I take pride in the construction of the panels,” he says. “They create a good foundation for painting.” Indeed, the days spent building the panels stand in stark contrast to the hour’s powerful surge it takes to create a painting.
As with Marin’s color, Venice assemblage sculptor Wil Shepherd finds inspiration in discarded objects. “It’s the object that leads the way,” he says, “the object asks to be made into something new.” His fascination with the challenge that this presents prompts Shepherd to build out of scrap: electrical wire, toothpicks, chicken wire, Lincoln logs, crucifixes, photographs, wood and a piano are a few of the objects that have jump-started his ready-made sculptures.
The appeal of the combined materials is heightened by the intricacy of their construction; Shepherd painstakingly threads twine through pint-size pieces of electric wire, creating what looks like a beaded mesh around a tree stump in “Life, would you like yours fried or scrambled?” and tops it with a bird’s nest made entirely out of toothpicks interlaced with barbed wire.
Along with the intrigue of deciphering the materials are the derived messages of Shepherd’s sculptures. In “Crucify in C Flat,” he depicts a compartmentalized crucifix populated by surprisingly animated figures fashioned out of piano keys, complete with appendages made out of springs. In fact, the entire piece is constructed out of parts of a discarded piano that Shepherd found in an alley. “The more volatile my life is, the more religious iconography manifests in my work,” he admits. Yet, his clear reference to the cross is only an unconscious visual manifestation of his own philosophy of life.
Finding inspiration in color, gravity, immediacy or found objects, Marin’s and Shepherd’s approaches to the use of discarded materials to create art — to vastly divergent artistic results — are indeed incomparable to each other. Yet both are equally enjoyable in their incorporation of the recycled for means of personal expression.
“Incomparable” runs through Aug. 2. Vita Art Center at the Bell Arts Factory 432 N. Ventura Ave., Studio 30, Ventura. 644-9214.
Claudia Pardo is a Peruvian-born visual artist and arts professor who lives in Ventura. When she’s not chasing after her kids, she actually gets some work done.
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