description
As a kid I loved magicians. One of my most cherished memories was when I used to go to magic shops with my grandfather. I was fascinated with secret compartments, velvet curtains and trap doors. Finally, after all these years I have found a way to apply some of those childhood memories to the art-making process.
In this class we will be creating an art chamber with rotating art….literally. Using assemblage and collage the students will create shadow box that has not one, not two, not three, but FOUR options for the viewer. If you get bored with an image, simply give it a spin and…Presto…a new image appears….like magic.
Michael deMeng is an assemblage artist whose work is heavily influenced by Latin American art forms such as retablos, ex votos, and milagros. Born in Southern California, he now works and resides in Missoula "the cultural Mecca of Montana". He exhibits and teaches throughout the world, promoting the alchemy of transforming trash to treasure.
Artist Statement:
My work is about transformations. It is about the transformation of the common into the sacred. Discarded materials find new and unexpected uses in my work; they are reassembled and conjoined with unlikely components, a form of rebirth from the ashes into new life and new meaning. These assemblages are metaphors for the evolutions and revolutions of existence: from life to death to rebirth, from new to old to renewed, from construction to destruction to reconstruction. These forms are examinations of the world in perpetual flux, where meaning and function are ever changing.
