Collage

Mixed Media and Collage Art in Rochester, NY

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About Jill Gussow's Collage and Mixed Media Work

Jill Gussow's collage work utilizes discards of clothing, kitchen utensils, leftover materials, paint, photographs and cut paper.

Layers and coverings, surviving, scavenging and the metaphorical use of materials are the current foci of her work.

Artist Statement

Traditional crafts that create and signify personal or cultural identity (for instance an embroidery pattern from a specific village in Mexico; the designs painted on houses by the Ndebele women; or the symbolic mosaics in Roman residential vestibules representing desired familial identity) provoke my visual and philosophical interests.

Visual manifestations of spiritual beliefs: The prayer paintings created with rice flower on the stoops of houses in India, the spirit masks of the Northwest-coast Indians and Mexican retablos paintings of gratitude appeal to my personal spiritual interests.

I am also intrigued by how visual motifs get repeated and refined through the centuries so that children absorb their significance from birth and accept them as culture-identities.

About the Pieces

I've been using bird and rock imagery for a few years now. I'm attracted to the infinite variety of postures in such a seemingly simple shapes. The postures and milieu of the birds and rocks become metaphors for many life experiences. I enjoy working with a limited motif because the limitations act as a visual mantra which like a verbal mantra, elevate my understanding, receptivity and acceptance. I truly find a creative freedom within these confines.

The fan pieces were inspired by a fan made in Cuba from a paper-covered coat hanger that had been reconfigured and painted to resemble a flower. It was a wonderful use of a very mundane object and it appealed to my interest in recycling and working within set boundaries.

All fan pieces are made of recycled silk clothing stretched over a reconfigured coat hanger. Though the area of these pieces is the same (around 48 square inches) the sizes vary because of the reconfiguration.