Junkmail Squared Series

16 July 2008

Junkmail Squared Series

The series Junkmail², the large 7ft x 7ft cardboard works and some of my digital collages are symbiotic. To make these pieces, I developed a process I think of as "recycling." First, images were pulled from printed advertisements with adhesive tape. The resulting transparent pictures were then enlarged digitally to make the giclee print series The Yes Era and Something Offer. The original tape segments appear as collage elements in the large paintings on paperboard Envy (Printed Line) and Save/Produce. From the bits of paper that are a by-product of this technique, I formed the small circular series Junkmail².

Click each image to learn more about it.

Bio:

Elisha Sarti is a painter who loves to collage. Her paintings often mimic the deterioration of mass-produced items; popular advertisements, magazines and other ubiquitous commercial papers provide Elisha with a wealth of raw material for imagery and art supplies alike. She’s currently building a new acrylic on canvas series featuring odes to junkmail, supermarket circulars and tabloids. Follow her progress on this project and more via the links from her website: ElishaSarti.com

In addition to working as an artist, Elisha is co- founder / co-director at NOWhere Limited – Contemporary Art, a retailer and publisher of fine art prints and other artists’ multiples.

She's in the process of moving from Boulder, Colorado to New York, along with her husband artist Scott Lickstein, and Tycho, the dog who acts more like a cat.

Contact:

Write An Email:
HERE

Join E-Mailing List:
Get email updates when Elisha has a new show, new art, etc.
SIGN UP HERE

Available Artwork:
Purchase selected paintings and other works via NOWhere Limited Gallery's secure shopping cart.
BUY / BROWSE HERE

Artist's Statement:

Flukes enchant me. I collect them like treasures. Many of the oddest make their way into my paintings and mixed media pieces.

My artwork often contains subtle odes to small oversights in quality control such as a misaligned print in a supermarket circular or seam lines in a plastic product. Similarly, I’m fascinated by word combination and layers of meaning. Idiosyncrasies, like an unusual phrase from a marketing slogan or a snippet from an errant translation between languages, can mutate into imagery or textural marks that appear in my work. I sometimes fancy I can divine mystic subliminal messages from seemingly ordinary advertising copy. It’s a lot of fun!

There’s beauty in garbage. As a mass-produced item deteriorates the specific course of its decomposition renders it unique. The irony of this cycle appeals to me and is the basis for many of my ideas. I am captivated by the sensibility of decay as well. Simulating an eroded texture is often where I begin my creative process. To achieve these decayed effects, I build up a surface from layers of paint and collaged elements.

The series $AVE/PRODUCE and Junkmail² are literally fashioned from trash: used tape, junkmail and paperboard boxes that once contained food or other goods. The imagery in these pieces is also recycled; I coaxed it out of the very matter I used to make the surfaces.

On occasion I stage experiments to generate weirdness instead of allowing the surface layer to determine the content. In one series I asked Google Image Search to make value judgments by searching for pictures representing subjective words like pretty, worst and perfect. The distinctly non-human results were collaged and transferred to canvas.

I’m currently forming a new body of work. In this as yet untitled series I paint acrylic on canvas with imagery from my recent junkmail collages and sketches.

16 July 2008