Mixed Media

Contact Information

e-mail:
www.lorraineglessner.net
Please contact artist for purchases, commissions, etc.

Artist Statement

Experience is never limited and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility,
a kind of huge spiderweb of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of
consciousness and catching every airborne particle in its tissue.
-Henry James

My background as a textile, interior and graphic designer combined with my profound interest in maps and geology has inspired me to explore how the earth, the body and the grid intersect.

I use satellite-imaging software to study how the grid organizes, divides, connects and interlaces life. The graphic patterns of community borders, urban grids, suburban development clusters and sinuous superhighways create amazing graphic patterns that inspire my work. Yet, as sprawl continues to scourge, cut and form the earth’s surface, working with, as well as against its natural tendencies, it leaves a strikingly beautiful as well as horrifying, mark. Grid-based patterns and earth marks emerge in my work through the use of materials and processes such as wood, hair, beeswax, silk, cotton, fire, rust and plant staining, all of which speak to and embody life and life cycles. Layers of disparate ornamental pattern interweave throughout the work and represent historical change, cultural differences and the passage of time. As these patterns fuse together, they splinter, fragment and regenerate, acting as a metaphor for the volatility and vulnerability found in the relationships between earth and humankind and between humans themselves.

With this work, my intent is to create technologically organic landscapes that read as a palimpsest on which personal, political and cultural histories and identities are metaphorically illustrated.