artist G. A. A.

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ARTIST STATEMENT/DESCRIPTION OF WORK

I make art because I feel a need to show what I see when I look at something, and I haven’t come across anything like what I see.

Several years ago a mentor sent me some recycled aluminum plates. That conversion, from simple paper to reinforced paper, made my large, sturdy works possible. After adhering the paper or canvas to the metal, I paint the canvas and then attach it, usually with screws, to wooden frames. If the piece needs it, I affix actual objects to the canvas. I often bend and contort the metal before securing it to the frame.

Each piece of my current work depicts an object or objects found around Kodiak Island’s coastline. Each beach has its own type of flotsam. One will tend to spit out Japanese cans, the other American and Russian bits of plastic. The unpredictable changes each object goes through, and their uncharted history, compare to the experience of being human. Each individual has been marked by its past. We all have been set awash on foreign shores. We have all been marked, whether it shows outside or grows on the inside.

The sculptural paintings in Objects repudiate the seemingly inconsequential value of certain environmental phenomenon,

such as....plastic eaten by ocean organisms. A piece of boat

worn smooth by the waves. What are their stories?

Where are they from? What do they mean for our future?

And simply.... the beauty of it all.

The following objects were mounted on the wall in my IGCA show 2010 as part of one piece. Other artworks from that show are in older posts. I painted the objects in these 2 works in pastel colors to mimic Kodiak Island's Aleutian home colors and foreign plastic beach found object colors.

Thank you Julie Decker of IGCA for supporting my application to show at the International Gallery, and congratulations on your large grants to host an invitational show and artists' funds for exploring Kodiak area coastlines, culminating in a show at the Anchorage Museum entitled Gyre:

THE GYRE PROJECT WAS GENEROUSLY FUNDED BY:

Anchorage Museum Association

Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership

Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation

Giles W. and Elise G. Mead Foundation

Leonard and Tannie Hyde

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

National Endowment for the Arts

North American Marine Environment Protection Association

Ocean Foundation

Paul G. Allen Family Foundation

Rasmuson Foundation

Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

Surdna Foundation

Wells Fargo

The William Randolph Hearst Foundation

Quote from my show's (entitled Objects) non publicized application to IGCA:
EACH BEACH HAS ITS OWN TYPE OF FLOTSAM. ONE WILL TEND TO SPIT OUT JAPANESE CANS, THE OTHER AMERICAN AND RUSSIAN BITS OF PLASTIC.