Wall Lable

Janine Antoni is a multimedia artist working through ideas of identity, motherhood, and our connections to each other. In her sculpture Moor, Antoni visualizes the connections we have with others by literally weaving sections representing different people together into a 326.9 ft long rope. Each section is characterized by what is woven into it, such as flowers or an extension cord. It takes careful, slow consideration of the work to notice these details. Antoni weaves “clues for [others] to uncover” throughout her piece, making it hard to experience its entirety in one viewing. (Art 21)

Cindy Phenix is also a multimedia artist working in oil pastel and textiles. Her process involves first creating a collage in Photoshop. Then, she uses the paint tool to draw in connections between images, allowing objects to weave in and out of the piece and build new designs. Using the collage as a reference, she draws or paints with more traditional media. Phenix enjoys seeing the many images come together into one work. As you view Opportunity for Slow Looking, you discover “different and strange” as well as “strong and powerful” images and their connections to one another. (Art 21) She also makes very similar works, using quilting to form physical connections.

Gabriella Trznadel uses both of these concepts in Everyone You’ve Ever Been. She is very similar to Phenix in terms of materiality, and shares conceptually the idea of connectedness between people and the discovery of new elements through slow looking. First collaging in Photoshop, Trznadel uses the collage as a basis for her drawing. By emphasizing the shapes, shadows, and patterns of subjects, she abstracts them in a way that sometimes makes them unrecognizable. In her piece, Trznadel aims to create a connectedness not between individual people, but between different versions of herself throughout time. Instead of creating a rope like Antoni, she draws on top of collaged paper to overlap the images. She uses the materiality of the oil pastel, crayon, charcoal, and collage to “weave” the piece together while still keeping the forms abstracted. The work is meant to be looked at slowly, from afar and up close, in order to discover the images embedded inside and let the imagination fill in the gaps. 

Process photos (left) and reference collage (right)