The featured 6′ x 3′ x 2″ mixed media is available in the Shop. For inquiries, please e-mail: sarah.ikerd@studio-shangri-la.com
WHAT: This large conceptual mixed media is from 2023, and it’s two large terraced recycled canvases with upcycled textile strips. Other materials include prominent mica, acrylic paints, and water based spray paints and glosses.
HOW: Making “Fabricate::Recreate” was an interesting process of layering the foundation, preparing the fabrics and shaping them, and then adding multiple layers of other paints. Although the strong concept or theme was there, it was somewhat improvised along the way. The layering to me is analogous to the fabrication and then printing of the planes of a circuit board, or the layered process of intaglio / etching or giclee printing. This painting also indicates going in a more sustainable direction with using upcycled materials, and since then I have pursued this approach further – most recently in mixed media “Tapestry Of We” and selecting print materials such as bamboo paper.
WHY: An alternate title for this could be “Prima Materia,” because the concept is of creation on multiple levels, from elemental to astronomical. And I used the mica and silver paint to give it a spacey or stellar look. Or, the appearance like looking through a microscope at metal. The readily visible and microscopic patterns sometimes look regular and other times irregular; still other times, irregularly regular, or regularly irregular!
The word “Fabricate” can refer to conjuring with the imagination, or physical, mechanical fabrication, on to the design of clothing. “Recreate” and creating with what one has, and having fun doing it, or starting all over again, or rolling back certain layers like I did while painting, like the elements of shifting formations in nature (that we are of course a part of). As for the double colon, that was influenced by scope in coding in addition to the reciprocal, reflexive mathematical look of it, of one being related to and part of the other.