Donna Frostick / The Myth of Memory

April 26 - May 18, 2024

Collage

Artist Statement:
Old photos have a way of surprising us. Moments we wanted to save as cherished memories are sometimes changed through the lens of time, or by an added emotional layer we didn’t anticipate, all those years ago. Even uncomplicated photos can evoke a fondness tinged with sadness.

But imagine we could strip the history and personal meaning from photographs. The only things left would be colors, shapes and lines, blending and swirling together in a space devoid of context.

The collages in this show are comprised of photos from my past. But they’re no longer about past events or associated feelings. Instead, they’re a means to travel to another time, a different place, a separate reality pressed together in my mind.

I begin by moving the chosen pieces around, on top and underneath each other, overlaying images and snippets of scenes. The layering often results in a dimensionality of the surface, escaping the flat-land of the purely pictorial, sometimes even conjuring a temporal dimension, reminiscent of film dissolves.



A big part of what I’m interested in as an artist is brushwork. In paintings, I often use textured strokes of colorful paints. Here, I use Mod Podge as a paint substitute, applying different Mod Podge finishes to the photographs that serve as the “canvas.” In addition to gluing the pieces down, the translucent strokes and textures become the collage surface, and the photos’ original finish is not necessarily present.



The final design comes not from a conscious subject or attempt at symmetry, but rather a subtle balance of the texture, color, forms and lines of the composition that – logically or illogically – ultimately click together.



The effect is an elusive realism based on a distorted world of bent planes. A surreal narrative suggests itself that can’t quite be understood. The completed pieces present a mystery – the hint of a world that’s not ours, exactly, populated with recognizable shapes in unrecognized spaces. Dreamlike mandala worlds – portals to somewhere entirely elsewhere.

In many traditions, mandalas are used as a mystical or esoteric prompt. Likewise, in the early 20th century, Carl Jung used mandalas as a psychological device to explore the workings of the self and its relation to the collective unconscious.

I’m attempting something similar with these collages: I’m splintering and recasting the memories through the filter of my psyche. Viewing them is like peering into a kaleidoscope of the past. But whose past? Without intact photos, the images break free of one person’s experience of a particular place in time, allowing the audience to step into a collective myth of memory.

Biography:
Painter and collagist Donna Frostick blends realism and abstraction, inviting viewers to immerse themselves in scenes that are otherworldly and yet somehow familiar.

She holds a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University and is a supporting artist member of Artspace.  She has exhibited her work throughout the Mid-Atlantic region and the South.

“The Myth of Memory” is her eighth solo show in the past six years.

Website: donnafrostick.com
Instagram: donnafrostick