Victoria Z Rivers Statement on Recent Artworks
My work is concerned with color, texture and pattern, through which textiles and surface additives are the perfect medium. My art behaves like a hologram in that information about time, memory, or dream states are encoded in membrane systems I create on the surface boundary. Every area becomes a “signal” by using holographic materials, mirrors, color shift pigments, and light reflective surfaces in frequent grid like compositions created by layered applications of color. My work exists as a field state rather than a depiction. I sometimes challenge traditional Western concepts on formal composition through dazzle or reverse camouflage that carries the surface to the near brink of visual collapse.
Furthermore, I explore the “kinetic dimension,” whereby the viewer interacts and perceives the changing surfaces in a unique experience in a given time. My works don’t appear the same twice due to the viewer's movements and the interplay of layered surfaces and light reflectivity. I also attempt to create dynamic images I "see" in my head, leading me to reflect on what is more real - things perceptually experienced through vision or the images generated in my brain independent of sighted vision. This phenomenon presents a paradox between inner vision and sighted seeing.
In The Holographic Paradigm (David Bohm and Karl Pribram), the authors propose that reality is fundamentally information and that what we perceive as solid objects are just projections. Their theories contributed to the discovery of black holes in the cosmos, whereby they question what happens to surface information as it disappears. Does it retain identity in an altered form? In my musing for example, on the death experience, do we retain identity under disembodiment? Are our memories erased or preserved and reconfigured? My highly reflective, immediately attractive surfaces can quickly change in a glance to reveal heavy, darkly detailed substrates. What we see in one moment is not the same as the next. Thereby the nature of these materials act as metaphors for the mysteries of life, the unseen future and the spark of divinity that divides life, death and spirit.
Throughout my university career I have produced and exhibited my artwork, conducted field research and published as an anthropologically oriented textiles scholar. In some of my art work, I utilize beloved old scraps and pieces of material culture through which I acknowledge a collaboration with anonymous, global textile makers. The antique textile fragments serve as metaphoric bridges between the past and present, and for their soulful presence. Once culturally valuable discarded textiles express a sense of poignancy through the “sad beauty” of decay.
artwork above: "Paradox II", 41" x 29", scanned and manipulated digital print on silk of my art, mounted on Arches BFK, with gold leaf, applique', various surface additives. 2006
Furthermore, I explore the “kinetic dimension,” whereby the viewer interacts and perceives the changing surfaces in a unique experience in a given time. My works don’t appear the same twice due to the viewer's movements and the interplay of layered surfaces and light reflectivity. I also attempt to create dynamic images I "see" in my head, leading me to reflect on what is more real - things perceptually experienced through vision or the images generated in my brain independent of sighted vision. This phenomenon presents a paradox between inner vision and sighted seeing.
In The Holographic Paradigm (David Bohm and Karl Pribram), the authors propose that reality is fundamentally information and that what we perceive as solid objects are just projections. Their theories contributed to the discovery of black holes in the cosmos, whereby they question what happens to surface information as it disappears. Does it retain identity in an altered form? In my musing for example, on the death experience, do we retain identity under disembodiment? Are our memories erased or preserved and reconfigured? My highly reflective, immediately attractive surfaces can quickly change in a glance to reveal heavy, darkly detailed substrates. What we see in one moment is not the same as the next. Thereby the nature of these materials act as metaphors for the mysteries of life, the unseen future and the spark of divinity that divides life, death and spirit.
Throughout my university career I have produced and exhibited my artwork, conducted field research and published as an anthropologically oriented textiles scholar. In some of my art work, I utilize beloved old scraps and pieces of material culture through which I acknowledge a collaboration with anonymous, global textile makers. The antique textile fragments serve as metaphoric bridges between the past and present, and for their soulful presence. Once culturally valuable discarded textiles express a sense of poignancy through the “sad beauty” of decay.
artwork above: "Paradox II", 41" x 29", scanned and manipulated digital print on silk of my art, mounted on Arches BFK, with gold leaf, applique', various surface additives. 2006
top row left: "Lucid Awakening III" 22.25" x 15", overall image below. top center: "Reconstructing a Dream IV with a snake" 29" x 11.5", overall image below. top right: detail, Reconstructing a Dream IV with snake. center left: Reconstructing a Dream V with melting flag". 29" x 11.5", overall image below.
center row center detail, "Reconstructing a Dream V". center row right: "Paradox II"
41" x 29". Bottom row left: detail, "Paradox II". bottom center: "Paradox VI" digital scan.
Materials described in statement.
center row center detail, "Reconstructing a Dream V". center row right: "Paradox II"
41" x 29". Bottom row left: detail, "Paradox II". bottom center: "Paradox VI" digital scan.
Materials described in statement.
in situ, top left: "Within Without" 11" x 7.75", with large mirrors over watercolor and goache on paper. top center: detail "Within Without". top right: "Lucid Awakening IV", 12" x 9", mixed media on paper, digital print. center left: "Lucid Awakening V", 12" x 9", mixed media on paper, digital print. center row middle: "Pojagi Time" 30" x 20", watercolor and goache on paper, collage. center right: detail Time Warp I". lower left: detail "Time Warp II", 26" x 13.5". lower center: detail in situ of "Collective I", 60" x 17.5". lower right, detail "Collective I".
below: "Time Warp I". dyes, pigments on cloth, digital print on cloth, applique', holographic and other surface additives. 55.5" x 18". And "Collective I", 60" x 17.5", in situ, dyes, pigments on found fabric, applique', prisma color, digital print.
below: "Time Warp I". dyes, pigments on cloth, digital print on cloth, applique', holographic and other surface additives. 55.5" x 18". And "Collective I", 60" x 17.5", in situ, dyes, pigments on found fabric, applique', prisma color, digital print.
top left: "Collective II" 50" x 22". top center: detail, "Collective II". top right: "Uzbek III". 46" x 30". center left:
detail "Timeline", overall 58" x 32". center row center: "Restitution I- Offering to Chithariya Bhavani, Our Lady of Tatters", 33" x 28". center right: detail "Restitution I". lower left: detail "Byzantium", 25" x 21" tesserae with 24kt gold on dyed layered fabric surfaces. bottom center: "Magnetism" 28" x 26", dyes, pure pigments, sequins and beetle elytra.
detail "Timeline", overall 58" x 32". center row center: "Restitution I- Offering to Chithariya Bhavani, Our Lady of Tatters", 33" x 28". center right: detail "Restitution I". lower left: detail "Byzantium", 25" x 21" tesserae with 24kt gold on dyed layered fabric surfaces. bottom center: "Magnetism" 28" x 26", dyes, pure pigments, sequins and beetle elytra.
above, "Timeline" 58" x 32", discarded antique dowry embroideries in disrepair, applique', cut glass, This piece references solar motifs and their meanings related to fertility and protection found in material culture of traditional societies of Central Asia.