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Home > Around Town > Three shows at Artlink
Three shows at Artlink
By Eddie Torres
Fort Wayne Reader
2013-10-07
 Great Outdoors
Great Outdoors is an open call, all media art exhibition featuring the wonders of nature with a focus on the Maumee River. Over 50 regional artists are participating in this exhibition.
The Maumee River is 137 miles in length, making it the largest river in the Great Lakes System which links the Mississippi River System to the Great Lakes. The 30-acre Headwaters Park marks where the St. Marys and St. Joseph Rivers merge to create the Maumee River. Also located at the headwaters of the Maumee River is Historic Fort Wayne (also known as The Old Fort). The Maumee River Corridor was once covered by glaciers. In addition to forming the Great Lakes after melting, the glaciers also formed the Great Black Swamp. Before being drained in the 1850s, the Great Black Swamp covered a mass of land stretching as far west as Fort Wayne, IN, south to Findlay, OH, and east to Sandusky, OH.
The focus of this exhibition is encouraged in partnership with the Maumee Valley Heritage Corridor. The mission of the Maumee Valley Heritage Corridor is to advocate for and protect the historical, natural and cultural resources of the Maumee Valley watershed while promoting their use and appreciation by current and future residents and visitors.
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Robin Dluzen: Where the Road Begins
“For the place where the road began is composted of infantine hallucination and youthful ambition, and these are deathless elements that remain with you forever.
This Home I speak of, madmen, may be anywhere on earth. It is the soul of Man, I think, and it is a component, a mixture, a swarming vat-like concoction of all ideals of Man, embodied upon one portion of the Earth’s crusty integument, and thrust upwards in a gesture of terrible finality and beauty that shall forever beckon.”
--Jack Kerouac, “Where the Road Begins”
My practice employs industrial and everyday materials to explore the confluence of landscape and labor. It is important to me that the media I employ, such as caulk, concrete, cardboard, plastic and tape, provide as much content as the representational imagery rendered through it. Though the subject of my work originates from an autobiographical place, it is not limited to my own experiences, but also that of my family’s labor history and a shared identity that is defined by place and time.
Born and raised in southeast Michigan, I strongly identify with the Midwestern landscape. Our political, economic and ecological histories are embedded in the manmade and natural frameworks of the cities and rural communities. I, and others who come from where I come from, have witnessed a particular anomaly of abundant history imbued in the present, not so much out of a fondness for nostalgia, but the result of a manufacturing and economic standstill. In these works, I relay my fondness for a place that is troubled and stalled, but also singular and symbolic.
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Vista: Paintings by David Buenrostro
Inspiration for this series of landscapes is drawn from my rich, diverse, complex and ever-changing culture. Much of my art reflects scenes from my personal experiences growing up in a Mexican migrant farm-working family. These themes resonate in the type of narratives that evolve and eventually become a complete image. My hope is that I can be a voice for the Latino experience in America.
A majority of my work is an expression of the human condition. This series of landscapes is a continuation of this exploration. It was influenced by the PBS Independent Lens documentary, “The Undocumented,” by Marco Williams. The film’s main focus is the large number of deaths among migrants who attempt to cross the Arizona desert. It intimately follows several families searching for their lost loved ones. The film shows the efforts of people who recover bodies from the desert and their attempt to identify the dead and notify their families. In this series of vistas, I am paying homage to the lives lost and the families of those individuals.
vis•ta [vis-tuh] noun
1. a view or prospect, especially one seen through a long, narrow avenue or passage, as between rows of trees or houses.
2. such an avenue or passage, especially when formally planned.
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Artlink
300 East Main
Hours Tues-Fri 10-5; Sat 12-6; Sun 12 - 5
(260) 424-7195
artlinkfw.com
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