Reinventing the Four Freedoms
It's A Gas
Throwing Coins
Randi Matushevitz
Artist Statement
My artwork reflects the fragility of human connectivity. My narratives are meant to illustrate how our point of view impacts our personal world experience. I explore uncertainty, reflecting the reactive mania or calm surrounding political polarization, social inequities and our changing natural environment as they are reflective of the indifference or involvement of the populous. The images are messy and murky set in an atmosphere of exaggerated dark and light created from layers of charcoal, pastel and spray paint on paper or canvas.
Mixed media drawing allows me to use traditional media non-traditionally to visualize the complicated responses to the dichotomies of humanitarianism, globalization and environmental issues in the current economy of the 21st century. Where we are asked to reconcile the conundrums of the life we live with the expected norms of responsible behavior, accomplishment, and success.
My influences are wide and varied: science fiction, folk tales and myths, history, romantic literature, movies, television, and popular culture. I have been especially influenced by Baroque dramatic composition and chiaroscuro; Kerry James Marshall for sentient relationships, William Kentridge and Basquiat for semiotic relationships between line, narrative, and chaos.
In open-ended narrative I amplify perceived conflict between inner-states of being and real world experience. I draw, smudge, superimpose, and re-draw again and again actualizing a dense surface that mimics entanglement and instability in contrast to freedom and stability. My intent is to evoke action over indifference.