ROBIN DINTIMAN
Artist Statement
I have presented two statements connected to my two most recent shows, one in the Catkills and one in Sebastapol, CA. both less than a under a year ago. The content is related and so I am including them.
Nature’s Will / RESILIENCY IN NATURE AND INNER NATURE
I have found reverie as well as inspiration in the natural environment. I am sure it is the “waitingness” of it, as well as the “beckoning ” of it, that captures me. The intense physicality in nature; the shear will of it’s materials; a material will is what is most riveting
The camera is a sketchbook, a daily journaling of glimpses, barely audible Sights, that are not articulate to consciousness.
Being an environmental activist, collecting natural objects, personal effects, and trash on beaches, roadsides and National Parks, THE WORK is A constant recycling of personal history informed by environmental casting.
From these archives I mold memory into objects, then age them in the elements. A new natural history is born within the process.
I find working three dimensionally I have the most freedom, but also the most anxiety. I am forced by use of a material, urethane foam that moves from liquid to solid quickly, to keep very much in the moment. Working with the urethane foam, I mold the pieces with my body so that the memory of my hands, limbs and torso are seen in the work with the found environmental objects; the personal is molded with the found forming more intimate reverberations. The use of industrial materials causes change over time through sun exposure, similar to how our skin ages, reflecting the ravages of time
Working with wax as a malleable surface, I use the casting process to find the miscast in a bronze pour. The “mistake” casts the object in real-time, with real consequences having been decided.
Working with less malleable materials, the process focuses on line flow with the chosen material. Juxtaposing disparate materials to create a resonance or dissonance depending on arrived at decision-making.
The process of printmaking, the repetition of an image, allows me to concatenate ideas. Images are subsumed after many phases, the process is what I find most interesting and generative.
Working an image/ object through many phases to evoke reverberations, the memory of the lost becomes palpable. The tenuous nature of life appears via these phases. Growth, degeneration and transformation re-emerge as a natural progression.
Ecological loss,” SOLASTALGIA, GREIVING THE LOSS OF NATURE”, A CONCEPT FROM “Mourning nature; Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss”, by Ashlee Cunsolo and Karen Landman. Introduced me to the formal thought prevailing in our Climate Change movement. I had been quite convinced by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring when I was 13.
The changes daily: transience, transformation and transcendence seen in the death and rebirth around me has been my daily was reality of life. Mourning loss of our Mother Earth, the only home we know has been my focus, although not intentionally but by course.
Robin Dintiman Artist’s Statement Back from the Bardo. Bereavement
I work out of necessity to articulate life’s complexity.
I have found reverie in the natural environment. I am sure it is the “waitingness” of it, as well as the “beckoning forth”, that allows me a safe haven. This natural environment is our home. The pace of it is slow, enduring, allowing space for vulnerability. Vulnerability and the intimacy created by this grace of space is the human condition.
We share loss. We are most vulnerable, at a loss for words. This current work reflects the time following loss of a number of family members. I was rendered raw, naked by the losses. The Bardo death, metaphorically is a space of time after loss when usual life activities become suspended. This altered state of reality is described thru visual, visceral images. Artists have explored “altered states” of reality for years. e.g. Nauman, Polke, have augmented their creative paths with hallucinogens. An altered state of reality is generative, transformative and unique; yet, a universal visual language can create a bridge for communication.
My camera is a sketchbook. A daily journaling of glimpses, barely audible sights that are not articulate to consciousness. Rather a flow of preconscious suggestions to inform with meaning at a later date. And objects found in my path become curious with memory when worked into my process. The intense physicality in nature; the shear will of it’s materials; a material will is what is most riveting
Past Group Exhibitions: Structures of Feelings, 2022 Fractal Nature, 2021 Forever is composed of Nows, 2020