Featured Artist Mary Curtis Ratcliff

Artist Mary Curtis Ratcliff shares a captivating assortment of blended media kinetic sculpture impressed by pure phenomena. Go to her website to see extra of her portfolio.

“Exoplanets” digital inkjet print, acrylic, coloured pencil and metal, 64″ x 60″ x 58″

I grew up in Birmingham, Michigan, a midwestern suburb of Detroit. From the time I can keep in mind, I used to be all the time making one thing—drawings in pastel, oil work, Tinkertoy towers, sewn stuffed animals, knitted sweaters, snow forts and sand castles on the shore of Lake Michigan.

“Jellies” polyester, Tyvek, acrylic, ink, metal and monofilament, 56″ x 66″ x 62″

I acquired my first Brownie digital camera at age seven. I’m nonetheless incorporating pictures in my two-dimensional works and my present kinetic sculpture. My brother and I constructed a city for our stuffed animals full with cardboard field housing, paper cash and a financial institution. It was made out of a wine field with compartments for the animals to deposit their earnings.

“Inside Panorama” digital inkjet prints on plexiglass, monofilament, 44″ x 16″ x 16″

Our dad and mom took us to international movies on the Cranbrook Institute, to the Artwork Institute of Chicago and to Swan Lake in New York Metropolis and the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork.

“Pelican Landings” alcohol ink, mylar, metal, monofilament.
46″ x 41″ x 31″

It wasn’t till I took a sculpture class in school that, at age 19, my teacher noticed that I used to be an artist and inspired me to go to the Rhode Island College of Design. There I majored in sculpture and at last returned to it in 1973 by doing a collection of huge kinetic wind sculptures out of coloured Japanese ribbon.

“Aquarium” Pébéo on plexiglass, monofilament,
64″ x 16″ x 16″

Over a 50 yr profession, I’ve remodeled one thousand artistic endeavors. A lot of it incorporates images, portray, drawing and picture switch. Seven years in the past I made Windbreak. I stated to myself, “Didn’t I make spherical, kinetic sculptures earlier than?” and realized the primary one was in 1973.

“Technicolor Timber” Plexiglas, acrylic and monofilament, 48″ x 46″ x 28″

Going to worldwide museums after I was younger, I’d encounter a big Calder cellular. I’d cease for a very long time and simply watch it flip in house. I used to be additionally very concerned about dance, one other type of motion.

“Bay Fugue” acrylic on Dura-Lar, metal, monofilament
7′ x 12′ x 7′

These influences plus time spent with the Lakota Sioux on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota attending Sundance Ceremonies and dancing the Scarf Dance contained in the Sundance Circle at evening, all engrained the type of the circle in me. Sundance Circle, drum, hearth pit and sweat lodge all got here out in my work a long time in the past.

“Skylight” digital inkjet print on plexiglass, metal
48″ x 48″ x 48″

My present signature type is kinetic sculpture. Largely they’re product of round plexiglass disks with my photographic photos both printed or painted on the clear floor. They’re suspended in compositions of three disks of varied sizes and hung at varied heights that flip in house and forged ever-changing shadows. The disks could be hung vertically as a variation on this theme.

“Three Clouds” digital inkjet prints on milky acetate, metal and monofilament,
27″ x 42″ x 16″

I’ve utilized for a grant to assist notice a big set up that might be the biggest and most complete assertion of my work so far. I’ll grasp roughly 14 kinetic works in a big spiral, all bearing nature-based imagery.

“Sequoia” digital inkjet print on paper, watercolor, coloured pencil, Plexiglas, wooden and metal, 45″ x 44″ x .75i”

Two-dimensional blended media works on picket panels shall be on the encircling partitions with video projections of clouds, birds, water, bushes, landscapes, woods, mushrooms and what’s additionally underground within the mycorrhizal zone. This setting will encompass the viewers and make an ecological assertion about Mom Earth.

Mary Curtis Ratcliff invitations you to observe her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and consider her bio on Wikipedia.

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