Installation by Martha Russo at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art
“Sometimes I love an artwork for the unusual usage of materials, sometimes for the surprising pairing of the content/idea and technique” says Lenka Konopasek, a Czech-born artist who received her BFA degree from the University of Utah and her MFA from Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine. “Often it is just my visceral reaction to the work I try not to analyze.”
One of her current infatuations is with the intricate installations of Martha Russo, a Boulder, Colorado artist whose abstract sculptures and installations call forth images of worlds animal, vegetable and mineral. “Her obsessive vocabulary is close to my own,” says Konopasek, whose work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and internationally and has been featured in the New American Painting, Studio Visit Magazine and other publications. “I am interested in assembling and breaking down structures creating scenes and objects bristling with tension somewhere between beautiful and dangerous,” she says.
Her recent paintings and paper constructions are explorations into themes of natural and man-made disasters. “They represent a collision between nature and people,” she says. “The work raises questions about longevity, the consequences of human behavior, and differences in cultural or national attitudes. This theme emerged from my own personal anxieties as well as world events.”
Lenka Konpasek, “Mimicry”
See more of her work at
http://instagram.com/konopasek.lenka
During the month of February we ask Utah artists about a specific piece of art or artist, living or not, local or global, that has sparked their curiosity or influenced their work. We run their responses throughout the month.
Categories: Who Do You Love
