Imagillaboration Collaborative Sculpture Project

GROUP 14 FACILITATOR

Jim Paulsen, Towson Maryland

An American Landscape

Artist Statement

The works in this series are diverse in size and material; however the approach is frequently the same, to focus on interrelationships between objects that seem to be charged with strong cultural implications. I choose objects that I like because of their form as well as their symbolic content within our American cultural and historical landscape. The anvil is one of my favorite subjects because it has been such a powerful cultural icon in shaping the American landscape and experience. As an object it has considerable mass and strength and it usually connotes strength and endurance. I attempt to humanize and de-industrialize the anvil by painting it pink.. The hot dog is yet another powerful icon but in a more frivolous and comedic sense. Recently I have become interested in making sculptural objects, both free standing and relief, out of cast paper. I particularly like combining contrasting elements, such as the highly contrasting use of color as I did in my sentinel series. I like my work to create ambiguities between issues which are both serious and frivolous.

David Page, Baltimore Maryland

Al Zaruba

website

Bio 2007 Alzaruba

Alzaruba is a Baltimore based visual and performing artist with over 120 exhibitions and numerous awards, including four Maryland arts grants, two Pollock-Krasner Fellowships and a year in Korea as a senior Fulbright Scholar. Currently, he teaches art at the Maryland Institute and Towson University.

Al was raised in Asia and Central America and spent 10 years in the Navy as an illustrator, the last four as the art director for the Navy's flight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels. His artwork is included in the collections of the Pentagon, the Naval Aviation Museum, The Experimental Aircraft Museum and MacDonnell Douglas Aircraft. After his service he received his BFA from Otis in Los Angeles and Paris his MFA from the Maryland Institute in 1990. His work is in the collections of the Everson Museum and Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in New York and Loyola College, Baltimore, The Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Milan, Italy, and the Fulbright Commission and Sung Kyun Kwan Art Museum in Seoul, Korea.

His work has appeared at Raeburn House in Congress, The Aldrich Museum in Connecticut, the Korean Embassy in Washington, D.C., the Ace Gallery and the Space Program in New York, the Nexus Foundation and the Painted Bride in Philadelphia and Baltimore's Contemporary Art Museum. Internationally his work has been exhibited in London, Marrakech, Cairo, Paris, The Italian Alps, and southern India. This summer he attended the Rochenfort-en-Terre residency program in Brittany.

Artist Statement

All of life is a great, interconnected energetic mystery, with the journey as the goal. Everything that I am oscillates towards God through quantum physics and a hunger for balanced love in action. Finding the balance is the difficult part.

Making art is akin to raising signposts and sanctuaries along the way. Consequently, many of my works are ephemeral collaborations to various degrees, deliberately intended to disappear and remain only though DVDs and photographs. It all centers on the mortal body as container for the eternal spirit, which is something only glimpsed in this world. I construct this most often in the form of abstracted frameworks or vessels in successive and parallel series with a complex range of processes, materials and formats.

The ideal is to balance explicit form with implicit content, as a way for viewers to interpret the work according to their own sensibilities. If all they see is the literal, then all they see is the surface. My metaphors are stacked and interlaced.

This work ranges through photography, video, performance, sculpture, painting, and drawing to public walk-through, ephemeral, full-scale ship installations built around living trees. The ship as womb, cradle and coffin contradicts its static, land-locked context and bridges land art, performance and environmental issues. Light is the manifested soul of each ship, especially at twilight, when I do most of my performances as a form of kinetic, abstracted sculpture. Words and poetry often appear as well. Recently, the ships have returned indoors, but now full scale.

Breon Gilleran, Baltimore Maryland

ARTIST STATEMENT

My current work explores the articulation and consolidation of forms. Charcoal drawings, silk thread embroidered on linen, and forged steel are linked via a synchronized gesture and then set into motion by an internal mechanism that propels the form to an improvisational conclusion. The gesture is conceived in the act of drawing; its material evolution from charcoal to stitching to steel hints at the fundamental organic processes of growth and decay.

The steel sculptures are constructed using traditional forging techniques used by blacksmiths so forms and surfaces are created when the metal is hot. Some pieces are articulated with springs and hooks, animating the work to interact with the viewer in the gallery space.

Breon Gilleran , Fall 2007

Leigh Maddox, Baltimore Maryland

Artist Statement

Changing Bodies Series

The Changing Bodies series is part of a recurring theme in my work. With this autobiographical theme I have an ever-changing, challenging, frustrating and sometimes melancholy source of inspiration.

The title Changing Bodies describes both the (female) body and the material used.

It is always important for me to find the absolutely correct material and process to realize my thoughts and I thrive on the challenge of stretching unlikely materials almost to their limit of stability and sense. Finding collagen based sausage skins for Changing Bodies - Sausage was, for me, perfect.

The female body is contentious at the best of times and I hope to portray both the playful and dark side of living in one.

Leigh Maddox

Tina Carroll, Baltimore Maryland

	GROUP 14 FACILITATOR Jim Paulsen, Towson Maryland An American Landscape Artist Statement The works in this series are diverse in size and material; however the approach is frequently the same, to focus on interrelationships between objects that seem to be charged with strong cultural implications. I choose objects that I like because of their form as well as their symbolic content within our American cultural and historical landscape. The anvil is one of my favorite subjects because it has been such a powerful cultural icon in shaping the American landscape and experience. As an object it has considerable mass and strength and it usually connotes strength and endurance. I attempt to humanize and de-industrialize the anvil by painting it pink.. The hot dog is yet another powerful icon but in a more frivolous and comedic sense. Recently I have become interested in making sculptural objects, both free standing and relief, out of cast paper. I particularly like combining contrasting elements, such as the highly contrasting use of color as I did in my sentinel series. I like my work to create ambiguities between issues which are both serious and frivolous.
	David Page, Baltimore Maryland
	Al Zaruba website Bio 2007 Alzaruba Alzaruba is a Baltimore based visual and performing artist with over 120 exhibitions and numerous awards, including four Maryland arts grants, two Pollock-Krasner Fellowships and a year in Korea as a senior Fulbright Scholar. Currently, he teaches art at the Maryland Institute and Towson University. Al was raised in Asia and Central America and spent 10 years in the Navy as an illustrator, the last four as the art director for the Navy's flight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels. His artwork is included in the collections of the Pentagon, the Naval Aviation Museum, The Experimental Aircraft Museum and MacDonnell Douglas Aircraft. After his service he received his BFA from Otis in Los Angeles and Paris his MFA from the Maryland Institute in 1990. His work is in the collections of the Everson Museum and Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in New York and Loyola College, Baltimore, The Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Milan, Italy, and the Fulbright Commission and Sung Kyun Kwan Art Museum in Seoul, Korea. His work has appeared at Raeburn House in Congress, The Aldrich Museum in Connecticut, the Korean Embassy in Washington, D.C., the Ace Gallery and the Space Program in New York, the Nexus Foundation and the Painted Bride in Philadelphia and Baltimore's Contemporary Art Museum. Internationally his work has been exhibited in London, Marrakech, Cairo, Paris, The Italian Alps, and southern India. This summer he attended the Rochenfort-en-Terre residency program in Brittany. Artist Statement All of life is a great, interconnected energetic mystery, with the journey as the goal. Everything that I am oscillates towards God through quantum physics and a hunger for balanced love in action. Finding the balance is the difficult part. Making art is akin to raising signposts and sanctuaries along the way. Consequently, many of my works are ephemeral collaborations to various degrees, deliberately intended to disappear and remain only though DVDs and photographs. It all centers on the mortal body as container for the eternal spirit, which is something only glimpsed in this world. I construct this most often in the form of abstracted frameworks or vessels in successive and parallel series with a complex range of processes, materials and formats. The ideal is to balance explicit form with implicit content, as a way for viewers to interpret the work according to their own sensibilities. If all they see is the literal, then all they see is the surface. My metaphors are stacked and interlaced. This work ranges through photography, video, performance, sculpture, painting, and drawing to public walk-through, ephemeral, full-scale ship installations built around living trees. The ship as womb, cradle and coffin contradicts its static, land-locked context and bridges land art, performance and environmental issues. Light is the manifested soul of each ship, especially at twilight, when I do most of my performances as a form of kinetic, abstracted sculpture. Words and poetry often appear as well. Recently, the ships have returned indoors, but now full scale.
	Breon Gilleran, Baltimore Maryland ARTIST STATEMENT My current work explores the articulation and consolidation of forms. Charcoal drawings, silk thread embroidered on linen, and forged steel are linked via a synchronized gesture and then set into motion by an internal mechanism that propels the form to an improvisational conclusion. The gesture is conceived in the act of drawing; its material evolution from charcoal to stitching to steel hints at the fundamental organic processes of growth and decay. The steel sculptures are constructed using traditional forging techniques used by blacksmiths so forms and surfaces are created when the metal is hot. Some pieces are articulated with springs and hooks, animating the work to interact with the viewer in the gallery space. Breon Gilleran , Fall 2007
	Leigh Maddox, Baltimore Maryland Artist Statement Changing Bodies Series The Changing Bodies series is part of a recurring theme in my work. With this autobiographical theme I have an ever-changing, challenging, frustrating and sometimes melancholy source of inspiration. The title Changing Bodies describes both the (female) body and the material used. It is always important for me to find the absolutely correct material and process to realize my thoughts and I thrive on the challenge of stretching unlikely materials almost to their limit of stability and sense. Finding collagen based sausage skins for *Changing Bodies - Sausage* was, for me, perfect. The female body is contentious at the best of times and I hope to portray both the playful and dark side of living in one. Leigh Maddox
	Tina Carroll, Baltimore Maryland