about my work

 

My work is primarily composed of and/or inspired by vintage, salvaged, and collected materials. I enjoy the process of finding materials and the possibility of re-purposing them: reinventing use, intention, or aesthetic, and the transformation into something dissimilar or unexpected.

Much of my work frequently consists of layered surfaces: bits and pieces from discarded books and magazines, found vintage pottery and glass, antique postcards, handwritten letters and recipes, obsolete reference material, thrift store textiles, and mysterious random objects, especially objects of the natural world. Order, association, and reverence emerges from the collecting, sorting, arranging, and placement of each accumulated piece into a whole.

As a printmaker, I experiment with alternative photographic and printmaking processes in which I take vintage/found photographic imagery or my own photographs and drawings that I rework and print using techniques such as such as van dyke brown printing and polymer gravure. I enjoy the idea of recycling visual materials and presenting them in a different context.

In 2006 and 2007 I worked extensively with raku-fired clay and bronze (cast and poured by myself) in a series of works inspired by objects of natural wonder displayed in wunderkammer or cabinets of curiosity.

 

c 2008 valerie roybal, contact