ARTIST STATEMENT

DUAL PROCESS ARTWORKS:
The Synthesis of Collage and Photo Processing

Understanding the photage process gives insight into the unique abstract images I achieve in digital painting. Photage is not the odd juxtaposition of visual language you generally associate with collage. For me it is an expressionistic, painterly, problem-solving process that begins with finding a rich and cohesive palette of fragments from recycled magazine pages. I then help each piece find its niche based on light and shadow, color, and texture dynamics. This focus on cooperation and symbiosis of parts is what paradoxically imparts a sense of calmness, strength of structure, and serenity in an otherwise very busy environment, a metaphor of my vision for a healthy earth.

"In a future series I expect to explore many more interesting color combinations and visual effects and perhaps create more loose, dynamic photages with more simplified patterns. However, since unpredictable is part of the definition of photage, I will be as surprised as my patrons to see what comes out next," I wrote in a previous artist's bio. Rereading this today, imagine my pleasant shock of realization that I have done just that, but not in the way I imagined. Digital painting has allowed me to push the photage images in the direction my artistic sense wants to take unfettered by the physical limitations of cut paper. I find that the interests piqued by photage, such as experimenting with light and shadow, depth of field, the balance of space, visual porosity of elements, mood and interaction of color, simultaneous micro/macro perspectives, and the commingling of straight lines and curves, can all be indulged using a stylus and powerful photoprocessing tools.

Traditional art training has been an immeasurable benefit in creating abstract depictions of qualities and sensations found in the collages and digital paintings. But while I can draw and paint, I consider myself more a constructionist and have always been inclined towards building, layering, combining found material, and the frugal and resourceful person's excitement in making something new and different out of something else. This seems to be the Nature's way of creating, and these new media dual-process artworks are my homage to and idealization of its many mysteries.

A R T I S T B I O

Life-long artist Marlene Struss is a native of California. She received her bachelor's degrees in fine art and social sciences from the University of California Santa Barbara and found the climate, both physical and spiritual, so conducive to creativity that she never left the area. Since that time she has produced a large body of work in a variety of disciplines, including drawing, etching, painting, surrealistic and political collage and, most recently, digital painting. She is best known for the striking collages she calls "photage" to distinguish the unique technical process and the visual effect achieved.

Ms. Struss's collage and photage has been widely exhibited and acclaimed in group and solo shows throughout the United States. She is the recipient of the coveted Independent Artist Award in Collage/Assemblage from Santa Barbara Arts Fund. She is an award winner in the National Collage Society's 23rd annual Juried Exhibition and a juried member of the National Association of Women Artists. Her work has appeared in several publications, including Kennedy Publishing's juried books Best of California Artists & Artisans and Best of America Mixed Media Artists & Artisans. Recently she has been selected by invitation to participate in Kennedy's Best of Worldwide Genre volume.

She started learning and experimenting with digital photo processing in early 2010 using high-resolution images of her photage as starting points. She soon realized that she had a natural affinity for this state-of-the-art technology and the stylus "paintbrush." It didn't take long for the new media artworks to be selected for several competitive group exhibitions.

She refers to these large abstract organic-looking scapes printed on canvas with archival pigment as digital paintings. They are distinguished by their lively fluidity, sophisticated color, impression of dynamic space, and dramatic use of light and shadow. In addition to her experience with layering paper, the meticulous interlacing of layers involved in her new method harks directly back to the layering technique she was noted for in her early etchings. And like all her previous abstract work, she prefers to allow the image to evolve without preconception by means of a series of aesthetic decisions. The beauty and mystery of the final creation then becomes its own message.

To view examples of both photage as well as digital paintings, please visit www.startran.com/artweb.