No One Is Listening - Collage Art Series and Art Show
This February I exhibited No One Is Listening, a collage art series I created, at La Loupe Vintage in Normal Heights, San Diego.
This series began with the materials I wanted to create with. I knew that I wanted to use thrifted album covers as the canvas for my collages. I went to a local thrift store and found some really cool records that I got for 50 cents each. The records are relatively unknown, which is why I got them for so cheap, which got me to thinking about how our culture thrives on content and how much is published to media outlets and consumed daily. It got me asking, how can anyone experience everything that's being uploaded? What is it all worth? It also got me thinking about things that happen rarely. It got me interested in juxtaposing the two phenomena. For example, the way 350,000 tweets are sent per minute against the fact that it takes the Hale-Bopp comet 2,392 years to orbit the sun.
I started the collages by obscuring part of the records with paint, creating interesting shapes. Then, I looked through some of my old Life magazines for more imagery to add on top. I found some great images of people gathering, protesting, or yelling. It provided a great metaphor for the message of being drowned out by a crowd. Next, I added some text that I found in the magazines that I felt spoke to my theme, but almost in a broken or poetic way. Each group of words would help to lead the viewer to their own conclusions. Next I added some different paint textures to the top, to give more movement to the piece. Finally, I added some text using my label maker. I wanted to present the viewer with a few facts to contemplate while they looked at the piece. I also wanted to viewer to be reminded of their interactions with these various phenomena. It might be interesting to them that they had sent a tweet or Facebook post multiple times that day, but would probably never see a Hainan Gibbon in their lifetime.
You can read my full artist's statement here:
“No One is Listening” is a collage-based commentary on the digital age and how the overabundance of information is precipitating a breakdown in meaningful communication. By juxtaposing electronic phenomena and the exponential expansion of the internet with slow moving and rare natural phenomena the series underscores how the daily and interminable avalanche of digital content falls onto deaf ears – after all no human can experience the 60 million images uploaded to Instagram every day. “No One is Listening” is not meant to cast a judgment over this electronic way of sharing information, but rather to bring a facet of modern communication to light and to beg the question “If a status is posted to Facebook, and no one gives it a like, did it really exist at all?”
By using a static-nearly-obsolete canvas to ironically preserve the digital impermanence of the Internet “No One is Listening” speaks to the ephemeral nature of the information age. Each collage is made using images culled from vintage magazines on top of vinyl record covers, both of which are dying forms of communication and expression. Both are far too “slow” for our fast digital world and require space or clunky equipment to use. The records themselves were chosen for their humble place in musical history. Most of the records failed to chart on any Billboard hot list outside of their respective musical genres.
Stardust Coyote is a collage and mixed media artist based in San Diego, CA. Using primarily found materials as the bases of her collages, she works with themes of identity, self expression, and what it means to be an individual in modern culture.
La Loupe Vintage was the perfect venue for No One Is Listening. Vintage shops are full of goods that harken back to a slower time of life, pre-Internet. They are little niches of artifacts from a bygone era. Also, La Loupe Vintage supports many local artists and artisans by exhibiting and selling their work in the shop. The owner, Brandi, is super passionate about cultivating community with her business and making a positive impact in the neighborhood. If you ever stop in San Diego or find yourself in Normal Heights, La Loupe Vintage is a great shop to visit for some one-of-a-kind vintage or goods made by local artists.
In addition to having a great venue for my art show, my friend, Sean Burdeaux played an awesome set of live music with his band, Paper Forest. Sean is one of the most talented and creative people I know and is always working on a new project. Everyone enjoyed the show and the music blended perfectly with the art and space for a magical night! Please check out Paper Forest, as well as Sean's many other projects, on Bandcamp.
Although it was raining cats and dogs that evening, so many friends, family, and new faces came to enjoy a night of art, vintage, and music. I was so happy with the turnout and the way that Brandi and Sean helped me to put on an awesome show.
