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She says, “I use my own refuse, and the discards and remains of others, to address timely environmental issues. With a strong sense of place, the work examines our own suburban back yards, our ecosystems, South Florida, and our home - planet Earth. Heavily observational, and research based, my co-conspirators in artistic practice are often scientists, whose guidance in double checking accuracy of scientific fact and the literacy of my visuals allow me to give free reign to modes of visual communication such as surrealism, palimpsest-based collage, concrete poetry, or performative play. This practice hones my own awareness of my responsibility as an environmental artist to take the words in Weintraub’s treaty, “What’s Next?” to heart and use the materials I already have including the random remains of deceased friends’ and relatives’ closets and studios, in a serious non-consumer exercise. I often fail, buying glue by the gallon, and discovering I can’t keep pace with the shelf life of some things I have accumulated. But the ideas, images, and materials create a dialogue in the studio where it ceases to be possible to determine which inspired or determined which. Do I make art faster, or curb my own supply of trash? My work is heavily influenced by my own compulsions and aversions. Both of these opposing forces draw me in. By using media, accumulated, inherited or unwanted, to determine my art, I now find I use color where I did not, I use the language of surrealism which previously I looked past. I rip and glue, to create elegance from mundane fragments. I cannibalize my own work, my notes, my sketches, my ephemera, rejecting preciousness and reducing my footprint. All this to evoke discourse, create narratives, and to concretize the storytelling of life on earth, albeit dire and beautiful. “ Gretchen Scharnagl was born in Greenwich, Connecticut and lives and works in Miami, Florida. Scharnagl received an MFA from Florida International University (2004). She is on the faculty of Florida International University in Miami. GRETCHEN SCHARNAGL'S WEB SITE |