Dark wooden box crowned with black hair with an illuminated swamp scene inside made with various objects in brown and green colors.
Trish Happel, Swamp Ruins, Mixed Media, 20.5 x 18 x 16 in, 2018 (modified 2022)
Artwork Statement:
When not working as a graphic designer, I love making my own eerie assemblage art. Thinking inside the box, I scavenge desk drawers and wooden boxes to house semi-abstract landscapes. I collage rusted metal, fabric, scavenged machine parts, broken toys, twigs and bones. Backgrounds are fabric or layers of resin-infused paper. I juxtapose ominous scenes with LED lights behind translucent media. It adds a colorful atmospheric background. LEDs stay cool and draw very little energy.
I celebrate broken, lonely landscapes: abandoned brownfields, power lines, smokestacks, rusted bridges and industrial ruins. I like to evoke aliveness amid decay and disquiet, but with a dash of dark humor. Lately I have been doing a lot of swamps. Nature fights back in industrial lowlands. I often sneak in toys, sci-fi and horror elements amid the scene—not obvious—but revealed as the viewer explores. My Swamp Ruins diorama was inspired by Karen Russell's Pulitzer- nominated novel, Swamplandia!. The story was a suspenseful, haunting journey into Florida darkness on land and in the Everglades.
My process began on a backyard grill. I burned giant holes in 3 desk drawers, to the bafflement of next-door neighbors. The drawers are mounted front-to-back, each opening into 3 layers of mysterious materials. As in the novel, I represent industrial remnants overgrown in a menacing jungle, populated with creepy elements suggesting an alien presence as well. Diorama materials here include dishwasher parts, toys, fake decorative foliage, rubber reptiles, a vacuum tube, fabrics and resin-infused paper. It has an outer cladding of epoxy-coated paper and burnt wood, with a glass front. To add to a hanging-moss effect, with a hint of Bigfoot, I recently topped Swamp Ruins with a large, tangled wig.
Artist Bio:
I work as a freelance artist in print, web and corporate presentations. Besides graphics, I create a large, unique body of work: self-contained abstract assemblage/dioramas. In desk drawers and wooden boxes, I collage landscapes with materials like resin-infused paper, rusted objects, toys, fabric, wig hair and twigs. I show haunting, eerie post-industrial dream vistas in colorful LED backlighting. I mix beauty with mystery and dark humor. See www.gallerytrish.com for more. Education: BFA, University of Colorado Non-degree studies at the School of Visual Arts, New York City Non-degree studies in digital multimedia, City Colleges of Chicago.
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