Poignant Portfolio no 34: Michelle Robinson
“I am interested in bringing intimacy and animation to forms that are ubiquitous but often invisible or ignored.”
Pink Tree
I adore photography that crosses boundaries: mixed media, installation, projection; I love it all.
I'm also a huge fan of work that is bound to processes. Perhaps that is the printmaker in me or just my love of Ann Hamilton's installation, but I'm not sure it matters why. I find the methodical repetitiveness engaged by highly process-oriented works to add depth to projects.
I stumbled upon Michelle Robinson's work when I saw a PR notice in my FB feed for an upcoming exhibition of her work entitled You Are Not Here. I knew I had to see more, so I went online and searched the interwebs, where I came upon this project, Transmission. This mixed media work is unusual in that it manifests in various forms, including wet darkroom work, collage, printmaking, encaustic, and sewing.
Many people would have difficulty integrating so many different styles into a cohesive project, but Robinson is so deft at this that she makes it look easy. My favorites amongst the varied works are the pieces that are the most abstracted. Processed by hand, then torn apart and sewn into new non-literal imagery that is still evocative of nature and the built environment. The curled edges, irregular margins, hanging threads, and earth and sea tones all come together with the imagery to speak to an uneasy partnership between the manufactured and the natural worlds.
I hope you enjoy this project. If so, I urge you to also look at You Are Not Here on Robinson's website. Although different than Transmission, both in theme and presentation, it's equally compelling.
—Diana Nicholette Jeon
Transmission
The body of work titled Transmission is focused on the Los Angeles River and the structures that surround it. The river takes many forms as it passes through the city, from concrete wastelands to semi natural wilderness. Power lines and telephone poles have replaced trees as the dominant vertical elements in the landscape; freeways and bridges cross its 42-mile length. There is a terrible beauty in that tension between the natural and the man-made, and in the river’s role as a conduit for power, communication, waste, and life. I am fascinated by entropy and the way in which nature inevitably reclaims that which is abandoned.
I’ve been involved in methodical, process-oriented art forms for some time because I like seeing the evidence of the hand in the final work, and I enjoy taking advantage of the opportunities for ‘happy accidents’ along the way. I primarily shoot on film because I find it places me more in the moment of capturing what I see. I use references to craft, such as sewing, to personalize and humanize my subject matter. I am deeply interested in texture, age, wear, and evidence of the passing of time, and I try to create images that, while inspired by real places, actually occupy something closer to a dream, or a memory.
—Michelle Robinson
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Artist Bio
Michelle Robinson received her Bachelor of Environmental Design and studied computer animation at Texas A&M University. She has been an artist with Walt Disney Animation Studios for 28 years, with credits that include Frozen and Zootopia, and she is currently Head of Characters on the forthcoming release, Encanto. She maintains an active personal studio practice and completed her MFA in Visual Art at NHIA in 2019. She has been published in SciArt Magazine, Precog Magazine, and exhibited her work at the New York Hall of Science, The Coastline Gallery and Chaffey Museum in CA, the Dairy Center for the Arts in CO, and Cecelia Coker Bell Gallery at Coker University in SC. She also recently juried a digital art exhibition and film festival for the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art in California.
See more of her work at: www.michellerobinson.org
Diana Nicholette Jeon is an award-winning artist based in Honolulu, HI, who works primarily with lens-based media. Her work has been seen both internationally and nationally in solo and group exhibitions. Jeon holds an MFA from UMBC.