Marianne Pepper at The May Gallery
Altered States, October 7th - 28th, 2005
I know of Marianne's work through association with the Saint Louis Artist Guild. She is a member of the "Six Shooters" gang and I can't tell if she is the muscle or the brains. Diversified in technique, she produces a lot of different types of work, which makes this show special. One could easily spend an hour and still circle back for more. Marianne uses images which are not readily familiar, gathered through travel. She then blends these with color and texture garnered from unrelated sources to produce a composition unique.
When viewing new work, I like to relax into it and save the analysis for later. This is a challenge when there are multiple techniques in the work and curiosity takes hold. Fortunately, Marianne was all too happy to go back through the work and answer all of my "what's this?" and "how's that?" questions. She uses an Epson 2200 printer on watercolor paper. Much of her work involves Polaroid image and emulsion transfers and also Ortho Litho film overlays. One of her works uses the same image but produced twice, side by side, once with each technique. The overlay technique is very effective. From the guide - "Ortho Litho Film Overlays are produced by printing one image on a sheet of ortho litho film (producing a high contrast transparent image) which is then placed on top of a color photograph of another image. The two photographic images merge together as one. The top image (ortho litho film) becomes dominant, while the bottom color photograph becomes a background of texture, color and shape."
The May Gallery, located in Webster University, is a photographic gallery which has its foundation based in education. As such, the entrance is adorned with photographic work from students past. Each is labeled with artists name and the event from which it was selected. It is an impressive collection going back many years. Each piece seems to be uniquely creative, which is why I like student artwork. At that age, creativity has yet to suffer the stifling effects of wisdom. While others may be trying to get in touch with their inner child, the young students are still one with it. When I try to get in touch with my inner child, the little brat always gets me into trouble.
posted by Rob Miller @ 12:38 PM
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