I went to the visiting artist lecture the other day with Penelope Umbrico and I am so glad that I went! I absolutely fell in love with her work. Her series that have to do with honeymoon brochures and the sunsets that they show in the windows as well as the discolored television sets. I think that I like these images so much because of the saturated colors in them. I think it is hilarious that we are supposed to believe that the sunsets shown are actually natural. I also never would have thought to find such beauty in television sets being sold on craigslist. I also really enjoyed the images that she took from home magazines where she pulled the windows and doors out and then blew them up to life size. It was funny to see what these ad agencies thought were a “natural” setting.
I usually have a big problem with appropriation. However, I could not be more impress by how Umbrico responded to questions about it. She mentioned that she dared somebody to go up to her sunset piece, the one where she pulled all of the images from flickr, and find their sunset. She has a point. I doubt anybody could because they have been so distorted in the blowing up process that your own personal sunset would be pretty much unrecognizable.
Although I did not find Umbrico to be a strong speaker, I still couldn’t help but to fall in love with her work. This is one artist that I will continue to follow and see where her ideas take her next.
Website:
http://www.penelopeumbrico.net/
Gallery:
http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/retrieve.pl?section=review&issue=issue01&article=LOVELESS_PENELOPE_UMBRICO_131319
Interview:
http://www.penelopeumbrico.net/Essays/5.html
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