ARTIST STATEMENT
My work concerns itself with the intricacies of my collective unconscious. As a feminist artist living and working at 7,000 feet near the sacred San Francisco Peaks in Northern Arizona, symbols are very much a part of my daily life. The revered sciences of antiquity were recorded in secular and religious icons which sum up certain esoteric principles and therefore form layers of fabrications and enigmatic language. Most cryptograms condense a multitude of meanings into one entity and can be interpreted in a cosmic or human sense. Obscure dreams or nightmares of past, present, and beyond often have no key and can be arduous to unravel. Apparitions of disconcerting images act as truth of reality or are deceptions of paranormal communications that serve to distort or omit the complete truth. My visionary art pierces the veil of remembrance with the creation of unpredictable remnants and is an exploration of feminine mythos intended to leave an indelible mark on a transcendent level. Recollections of cultural personifications and allegory are a vital channel of expression. The recurring arc can be equated with the egg — a sacred pictogram in the cosmology of every people, representing the immense process by which biospheres and all living things are born. G-d has been a womyn since the beginning of time — a reminder that archeologists believed divinity was considered female for the first 200,000 years of human life on earth. The loveliness of the moon has inspired all of womynkind since the beginning of time.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Rhonda Urdang is an interdisciplinary artist who has been inspired by the intersectional feminist and peace movements. She has had a varied and interesting career; she has worked as a typesetter, museum gallery attendant, apprentice dot etcher, and journeyman color separation artist on high-fashion catalogs in the graphic arts industry in Omaha and Phoenix. Since leaving academia, the patriarchy and pseudoscience behind (some things are folktales and misbelief), her ingenuity has flourished. Her visionary art responds to historical and world events, when painting and the female artist are still being diminished, silenced, marginalized and erased. Rhonda is interested in making contemporary art that challenges the narrative. The Feminist Art movement has argued that re-appropriation and re-signification is a cross-cultural process by which disregarded or oppressed individuals can reclaim artifacts or images that were previously used in a disparaging manner and uplift them in a way that brings about socio-political empowerment for under-represented womyn. She stays true to her instincts and is always authentic. Since founding Flagstaff Feminist Art Studio, she has worked in multiple disciplines including femmage, assemblage, book art, collage, digital manipulation, painting and experimental film. Her thought-provoking works have been exhibited widely in local, regional, national and international shows in 41 states. Rhonda enjoys working in a nurturing environment that encourages creative expression and has explored feminine archetypes that embody feminine energy. She has lived in Northern Arizona spanning four decades where stargazing has become a crucial aspect of her world on the Colorado Plateau.
©Rhonda Urdang