Wally Workman Gallery will open Wondrous World, a solo show with Priscilla Robinson. Inspired by transitions in nature, Robinson’s work is a meditation on movement and the evolution of patterns. Her choice of paper as material references time, culture, process, and tradition as well as the evolution of human technology. She uses a wide array of fibers and papermaking styles to create hundreds of individual paper units that make up each piece, coming together in representation of nature’s dynamic and intricate vastness.
My artwork explores visual interpretations of seasons, growth, and the rebirth of plants and light. I use many media to fit together fragments of thoughts that have interrelationships about this nature motif. I combine acrylic paint, polycarbonate, cast glass, metal, and handmade paper made from many different kinds of plants. The work hangs on the wall, suspends from the ceiling, or stands on the ground. It exists between the worlds of sculpture and painting. Materials, texture, translucency, and color are important elements in my thinking and the repetition of form in nature repeats itself in my work. I like to think that my art pieces are nature, not about nature. I consider myself a magician, an alchemist, and a mystic.
I am attracted to texture, materials, and luminosity. I interconnect shapes and units to form a larger whole and combine fragments of thoughts that have interrelationships. The recurrent themes of wholeness and natural change thread through the work.
My personal expression evolves from the desire to explore and the desire to open a door without knowing where that door leads. My techniques cross centuries, landscapes, and cultures. Handmade paper is combined with cast and fused glass. Overbeaten fibers are used with natural coloration and watermarked with patterns. Other fibers are sometimes embossed and submerged in vibrant color. I like the contrast of the organic materials with the solidity of the glass.
(Priscilla Robinson)