Ron Saunders - Pendulums and Satellites
- Published: Monday, February 17 2014 09:00
PHOTOS AND TEXT BY RON SAUNDERS
I am a multi-disciplinary artist who works in both traditional and experimental media, and have shown and lectured about my work nationally and internationally. No matter what medium or content I have explored, I have carried my interest in the sciences with me.
In 2010, I attended the Raumars Artist Residency in Rauma, Finland funded by the Finlandia Foundation and New York Foundation for the Arts. There, I was invited to participate in the Rauma Biennale Baalticum, “Mitä Meri” (What’s up, Sea), at the
Rauma Art Museum, and presented the work from Finland at Het Wilde Weten in Rotterdam, Netherlands. I have also received grants from the New York State Council for the Arts and the Community Foundation of Elmira-Corning to present work in the Finger Lakes Region of New York.
In 2007, I attended the Kunstdoc International Artist Residency in Seoul South Korea funded by KunstDoc Gallery and established the Seoul Art Collective from 2005-2008 which hosted a number of exhibitions for artist throughout Korea. My work has also been seen at the Mission Cultural Art Center in San Francisco, the M.W. Offit Gallery at Columbia University, New York, and selected by Carol Ann Klonirides for the Kellogg University Art Gallery, Pomona, CA
Although I am first and foremost an artist, my relationship with science and most recently astronomy informs how I create my work. Under a closed simple set of rules, I often ask the materials to stretch to their limits and perform for me. I attempt to discover what happens between the preset method and the outcome. As a result of this collaboration between forces and structures that have their own dynamic, I create an on-going visual experiment. Much like the scientific process, the goal is often to create a practice that can be controlled and repeated, and the search for these systems often reveal beautiful surprises.
Satellites Dictionary, 2011. 16”X32” acrylic, spray paint, and paper collage on aluminum
Presently, I have been focusing my energy on finding ways to merge the field of physics, astronomy, and art. As humans, we often use science to solve real world problems, and I believe art shares some of this ability. When we look at the cosmos, we see stages of life and death; we glimpse into order and chaos.
Observing what little we know, drives us to work harder to understand the rest. For me, creating work about astronomy allows me to experiment with the unknown, while at the same time investigating my own personal search for meaning, purpose, and beauty. As I combine celestial realities with abstractions, I create a framework to experiment with chance and beauty.
My interest in the sky is not new. In the past number of years, my work has included observation and navigation as central themes. I believe, as much as we like to think we understand what we see, there are so many challenges involved in this process. Since it is almost impossible to account for every variable we encounter, our eyes often deceive us. When we look at something we do not understand, we naturally fill in the blanks. Perhaps this is what happened when the
Greeks connected the stars to resemble gods. To this day, we find ourselves laying, our backs on soft grass with eyes to the clouds, pondering the realities of our past and future while fluffy white dogs, whales, or cars slowly float above us.
In Search For A God of Gaps, detail, 2013. 16”X16” acrylic, spray paint, and paper collage on finished masonite
As explained by the observer effect, born out of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, to observe something is to change it, and not just the perception of what that object is, but also its metaphysical properties, its nature and behavior. Because of this, we are all active participants in a cosmic soup, trying to understand our place through observing our surroundings. Wherever we look, we find evidence of the divine animating principle that pervades the Universe; we only need the appropriate lens to see it; we need a cipher.
I don’t think my paintings constitute the only cipher, we know, people use all kinds of things to understand what they see. For me, my paintings act as a beginning of a corpus with an infinite number of possibilities and interpretations, ultimately providing a framework to navigate the universe. Ultimately, I am inspired by the tension and play found in the theoretical aspects of contemporary art, the creation and realization of an object or event, and the contemplation and challenge that the natural environment and daily life gives me.
Pendulum Painting Series #9, detail, 2002. 48”X48” latex enamel on plywood
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