Artist Portfolio - Arlene Nesbitt
Temporal Landmarks
This is a series of water colour and mixed media landscapes from my life's travels with experiential landmarks, memories, and emotional events, appearing as discarded and unrecognizable material. Trees Remembered are photomontages created with original photos.
Human - Nature
I engage in a process of discovery where disaster has potential and ideas bear fruit. We are revolting ... moving from DNA to GMO shown as a distorted double serpent in 'Evolution Revolution'. In this piece traditional art media and techniques have been invaded by electronically created and printed images. Flowers seem to appear in photos of plastic refuse. Inkjet prints are collaged onto hand painted watercolours. As we redefine our relationship with nature to be one of union we realize the beauty of the forms and patterns we have in common. 'In Accordance' expresses three different views held in communion.
Out of Place and Beyond Reason
Out of Place and Beyond Reason is a visual discussion about the idea of fitting in... in with the digital age, the art scene, and the planet. Different media are combined to express the tension created by nonconformity and the freedom of imagination. Water colour paintings, pencil crayon, and charcoal are layered with digital print pieces. Photographs are montaged with other photos or with drawings.
Image Informed
'Image Informed' is an exhibition of photomontages influenced by ideas from Hermeticism to Hegel to Marshal Macluhan. To be informed is to receive and incorporate data, perhaps to attain substance that enhances. When a crayon drawing is laid on a photograph and rendered transparent, line and form merge. There is a meeting of energy and object, the thought and the thing. In Bent Metal the pervasive energy of the drawing creates the appearance of folded cloth when it informs the photograph of creased aluminum. An image of a white rose embedded with a free form, colourful drawing becomes a figure in a distant view of Dancer II In this age of information the opposing stance between the real (facts) and the ideal (imagination) can alter through a heartfelt union. Leo Tolstoy says, art is a conversation between lovers in his book What is Art. Inherent in this idea is the potential for art to generate change, to inspire communion.
Mind Over/With Matter
A conglomeration of dancing particles in tune with a stringed instrument called universal mind.This series is about the idea that both thought and matter are processes. The manifestation of the material world and our perception of it happens at the fringes of our awareness. There are information networks, infinitesimal. Scientists are using electron microscopes to discover miniscule particles that facilitate this interaction.
'The Tree of Life Emergent' and other images are about potential, expression and decay. 'Symbiosis' and 'The Jester and the Church' show that sometimes we call this process magical and sometimes miraculous.
Most of the images are photomontages with ink on mylar in editions of five.
Imago Mundi
This series of images is about emerging from the mythical past into the imagined future. It is a collection of work made over a period of 30 years in a variety of media from paint brush to linocut to computer.
The Virtual Reality of Ideas
It could be that Ideas* exist in the cosmos, arrive through the agency of angels and take form according to our perceptions. In these images red haloed entities bear energetic black marks representing ideas with a small i. They seem to assume a life of their own 'Gathering' themselves together or being tossed about in a 'Brainstorm'. These black marks can be transformed into lines that depict dreams as in 'Jacob's Ladder' or thoughts as in 'Farmed Salmon'. Eventually under too much analysis and examination the ideas dwindle, become dots as in 'Lookout', 'Look In' and 'Disappear'. *idea, n. an archetype of the manifold varieties of existence in the universe, belonging to the supersensible world. (Platonic)These images are macrophotos of acrylic sculptures by Craig Beal
Refuse Illusion
Refuse Illusion is a series of images - discards, junk and stuff perceived to be beautiful - a reminder that '....being the Reality ourselves we seek to gain Reality' Maharishi
The Medium and The Machine
Machines seem to have a life, a beginning, a middle and an end. They respond and deliver, sometimes expressing a mind of their own. As the machine age transforms into the electronic, I feel a nostalgia for those servants of old. Perhaps mechanical beings develop souls, who knows? Cyanotypes, photomontages and photographs.
Reformation Now
Musing on the elements that influenced the Reformation of 15-16th century I saw a parallel in the present time. The process engages dreamers and visionaries to reflect on the current structures, to see and portray them from new perspectives and toreveal the hidden potentials. Reformation Now combines the traditional and the new to offer an optomistic attitude to the changes in our world view.These are photographs of various things seen through a homemade quadrascope with a +10 filter.
