Smoke Signals
"Smoke Signals"
a solo exhibition by local artist
is on view in Gallery 1 from the 14th to the 27th October 2015.
The opening celebration will take place on Saturday 17th October 2015, 5-7pm.
"Smoke Signals" is a commentary on contemporary issues that Sandra Robbo feels strongly about.
She is a recent SCU Visual Arts graduate, and is mostly concerned about environmental degradation.
“However,” Sandra says, “everything environmental is now also a political, social and economical issue
that needs to be communicated and kept in the forefront of public consciousness.”
For most of these works, Sandra captures smoke residue
on to paper, a method she is continuing to experiment with.
Artist Statement
- Sandra Rubbo, October 2015
"Smoke Signals" is a result of an exploration in the medium of smoke residue
onto paper. The subject is largely environmental and our relationship with it
as our cultural heritage. Though I am profoundly aware of large corporate environmentally detrimental activities, I found myself focusing on small-scale environmental damage that often occurs at a more personal intersection.
Many of our cultural 'habits' that have developed unquestioned such as collecting/removing things from from their surroundings now becomes
questionable as we are asked to scrutinize our behaviour closely.
Possibly our nature loving selves may be the perpetrators leading to
a degradation of some degree. This scrutiny has become necessary
from massive loss of habitat. I see it as a symptom of our culture dominance, which may be an innate compulsion in all of us? Though it is unfortunate, impossible and ridiculous to segregate our human race
from natural environments, as they are so important for us, as the strong compulsion to carry pieces around with us and adorn our lives with it.
I am a recent graduate of SCU visual arts, majoring in print.
"Smoke Signals" is my first solo outing.
The use of smoke as a medium is for me wonderfully poetic with many metaphors. The gentleness of which the smoke contacts the paper is like a breath imbued
with pigments that layer themselves giving a quality that is unlike any other.
There is an element of unpredictability that I (mostly) welcome.