ARTIST STATEMENT
The “Postcards from the Past” series explores images of my family and images from my childhood: digitized photographs disassembled and reassembled into collages with mixed media. The digitizing and collage processes are parallel to the memory process which allows me to duplicate and relive and reconstruct the past. Neutral images from the past carry with them good or bad messages depending upon their interpretation in the present. Some provide comfort. Some provide closure.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ruth A. Keitz has been involved in art since elementary school. She participated in Saturday art classes at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, PA from fourth grade through high school. (Well known graduates of the Carnegie Institute program include PhilipPearlstein and Andy Warhol.) After graduating with a B.A. in art from Allegheny College in Meadville, PA, she went to the University of Texas at Austin to continue her education. She was a student of Kelly Fearing and Michael Frary. She completed her M.F.A. in art education with a minor in studio art and a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with a minor in studio art. The stuff of her art is as likely to be the discards of industrialization as the discards of nature. She enjoys the “thingness,” the uniqueness of objects and materials: texture, shape, color, contrast.
© Ruth A. Keitz