Three artists who graduated together from Florida International University will exhibit their works in Ritual and Process, a show that explores the evolution of the human experience. Rosemarie Romero, Kacey Westall Keogh and Orlando Estrada incorporate intuition, icons from the past and low-tech media such as drawing, collage and photography to create art that examines the direction of our consumer-driven society while expressing frustration with an uncertain world.
“We’re Generation Y kids, brought up with digital technologies and mass media, where everyday consisted of sensory bombardment, transient spiritual loss, alienation and collective trauma,” Romero explains. “We grew up in a culture where the media defines our reality, religion is replaced with entertainment and consumer products and the fragility of memory parallels with how quickly things and events are replaced with new ones.”
“We asked ourselves ‘Why do we make art? How does our current historical context influence the content and form of the images we create, and what is our role as artists in the 21st century?’” Romero continues.
In answering these questions, Romero says they realized that creating was a means for them to cope, understand and maintain stability in a rapidly changing environment. “The act of making becomes a personal form of ritual,” she explains, “and the artist takes on the role of shaman but with OCD, of course.”
Romero’s work in the show is a series of decollages and photo montages that she says “deconstruct current events, history and pop culture.” Her decollage “Entertainment Industrial Complex” is designed to resemble a scraped and decayed billboard. “It reveals violent photos of the war in the Middle East juxtaposed with junk mail ads,” she reveals. “Consumer items are shown alongside images of tragedy and modern warfare.”
“Lysistrata,” her photo montage, is named after an ancient Greek comedy about a woman’s mission to end war by using sex to negotiate peace. “I subverted a fashion ad of a supermodel posing seductively, replacing the center of her dress with an image of male soldiers just lounging in a bombed out building,” she says. “When I have it displayed on the wall, it mimics the retail fashion displays in clothing stores.”
The work is a departure from her typical approach and indicates a new direction for Romero. “With decollages I am taking away from the image but with the photo montage I’m remixing images themselves. It’s like I’m adding.”
Kacey Westall Keogh’s work deals with memory, moments in time and photographs. “It’s funny when I google ‘memory’ there are more links pertaining to computer memory than human memory and both could have a basic explanation that is frightfully similar,” she reveals.
To see her works “Cat-tails” and “Tricycle” and read more about her creative process, click through the accompanying photo gallery, which also contains images of works by Orlando Estrada.
Ritual and Process will open 7-10 p.m. Saturday and run through March 28 at ArtCenter/South Florida, 800 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach. Call 305-674-8278.
