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Rita Seidl - Curatorial Rationale
The idea of adventure is one that is important to me in my vision of a life well-lived. It is also one that is important to describing who I am and what I value. I have always been drawn to art that gives me the feeling of being transported somewhere else, whether that art is visual, musical, or literary. My happiest memories center around adventures that I have been lucky enough to have. With this body of work, I hope to recreate a certain feeling, best explainable by wonder, excitement, or adrenaline.
My trip to Alaska is a recurring motif in this exhibition. In Past Adventures, Self Portrait, and Near Rainbow Glacier, I drew inspiration from this experience and used it to guide the images I was presenting. This was an extremely formative adventure for me and one of my happiest times. I hope to share some of this happiness through my art with these pieces. Throughout this process I was able to experiment with new materials that I was not familiar with, including oil pastels (Self Portrait) and wire sculpture (Voyaging). I enjoyed practicing these techniques and eventually using them to create pieces. Over the past year I have worked a lot with acrylic paint, mostly on my bedroom walls. I wanted to include pieces that showed my confidence with this material. This was also the rationale behind choosing to create a video for one of my final pieces, Past Adventures, as video editing is something I have become comfortable with and enjoyed throughout high school.
The way I have ordered my pieces relates to which works have the strongest connection to my theme. With Afternoon Drive and Past Adventures, I want the viewer to feel transported into the adventures I have created. I believe that these two pieces are the most likely to have this effect. These two pieces also have a connection in that they each offer many differing images, leading the viewer through a wider range of experience. In Afternoon Drive I selected 9 images to collage into the car windows, representing the places one could imagine venturing to. They are distinct from each other but still cohesive in the colors that I chose. With Past Adventures, I aimed for the same effect: three sections clearly marking different experiences, but also connecting to each other in a way that ties the work together as a whole.
Self Portrait and Voyaging are also conceptually strong in connecting to my theme of adventure within the clear idea of travel. They also fit together in that oil pastel and wire sculpture were new mediums for me. The next two pieces, Candle and Second Star to the Right connect to adventure in their own ways, further explained in their exhibition texts. I have arranged Near Rainbow Glacier to be the final piece in the exhibition, as it ties back to the initial presentation of adventure as travel, and to the motif of Alaska. I also chose this to be the final work because it reflects a feeling of calm which I hope will transfer to the viewer.
Rita Seidl
Afternoon Drive (February 2021)
Digital Photography (printed), Found images from National Geographic
22 x 28 in
At a time where we are cooped up inside and can’t go anywhere, I wanted to lend some imagination and create a piece that felt like getting out of the house for a real adventure. I have always loved driving and taking road trips, and I love the freedom that comes with getting into a car. Through photography and collage, I was able to combine the fantasy of where I wish I could go with the reality of an afternoon car ride.
Rita Seidl
Past Adventures (February 2021)
Video
1 minute 37 seconds
This video takes clips from my previous trips to New Orleans, France, and Alaska. I aimed to show the happiness that I find by traveling and having adventures. I tried to incorporate music that I think reflects the feeling of adventure and select and edit clips in such a way that watching the video feels like going on those adventures again.
Rita Seidl
Self Portrait (October 2019)
Oil Pastels
10 x 12 in
This self portrait centers around my trip to Alaska in summer 2019, the time when I was happiest and the most myself. The background is a scene from Flower Mountain, one of the places I visited, and around me I have illustrated Alaskan Forget Me Nots, the state flower.
Rita Seidl
Voyaging (December 2020)
Wire, Beads, Wood, Found maps
7 x 16.5 x 5 in
With this sculpture I wanted to juxtapose two methods of navigation, from past and present. The sun and moon are representative of the way people used to direct their journeys. From the front of the sculpture, you can see only the sun. Peering into the sphere from an angle, the crescent moon is visible. The maps are a more modern tool. I chose maps that showed places where I have made memories, Pictured Rocks and Arbutus Lake.
Rita Seidl
Candle (January 2020)
Acrylic Paint
7 x 14 in
Abstraction holds an image of adventure in itself, as it takes an object and makes it something new entirely. This painting was modeled off something as simple as a candle, but I aimed to give it motion and life. I had not really attempted to paint an abstraction based off an object before, and the execution was somewhat of an adventure to me as I figured out how to make the ordinary unrecognizable but with the same essence as before.
Rita Seidl
Second Star To The Right (November 2020)
Pages from J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, Found images from magazines, Watercolor paint, Acrylic paint
14.5 x 17 in
When I think of adventure I think of two distinct ideas: one centered around experiences I can tangibly create and another centered around the fantastical adventures from stories, often those I read as a kid. Peter Pan was one of those stories that meant so much to me, and I wanted to center a piece around those childhood adventures that were so important in shaping my imagination. I drew inspiration from the Disney cartoon with my painting of Neverland in the piece.
Rita Seidl
Near Rainbow Glacier (August 2020)
Acrylic Paint
20 x 22 in
Once again I drew inspiration from my Alaska trip. This painting is based off of one of the sites I stayed at in June of 2019 on the Chilkat Inlet. The view was incredible and I wanted to capture the brilliance of the sunset in my painting. I painted this mural on the wall of my room so that I can always have a piece of that adventure.
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