Naomi Ribner: If These Walls Could Talk: The Fiddler’s Story

Artist(s):

• Naomi Ribner

Title:

If These Walls Could Talk: The Fiddler's Story

Exhibition:

• SIGGRAPH 1998: Touchware

Creation Year:

1998

Medium:

Iris print on wrinkled, torn, collaged rice paper

Size:

27.5" x 32.25"

Category:

• 2D & Wall-Hung

Keywords:

• collage
• iris print

Artist Statement:

If These Walls Could Talk explores the passage of time, particularly the power of places and artifacts to trigger memory of [real and fictitious] moments in time. My work is based upon my travel through the ruins of abandoned buildings in ghost towns in the western U.S. and periodic trips to the dusty, memory-laden, artifact-filled house of my childhood. I find myself drawn to richly textured products of decay: layers of peeling wallpaper and fabric, dust debris, and scattered artifacts. I have always liked to “read” my work with my fingertips, a kind of Braille. In order to achieve a built-up surface in my digital work, I mix the illusory textures of inkjet prints with the tactile qualities of drawing, printmaking, and collage in a multi-layered process. Typically, the bottom-most layer is a heavily embossed collograph print or a collage of torn paper, overprinted with the inkjet print. Subsequent layers are achieved with additional overprinting (lithograph or serigraph) and/or direct drawing with pastel, charcoal, or graphite.

The method and the message are one and the same. The layered digital collographs and collages emulate those time-beaten wall surfaces, the peeling wallpaper a metaphor for digging back through layers of time and memory.