brooks shane salzwedel

“Once I’ve dipped the piece in resin, there’s no going back. I can’t change anything, which is sometimes annoying. Sometimes I want to go back and modify an element, but my mistakes are trapped in the resin forever.”

http://bo-lee.co.uk/bio/brooks-salzwedel-biog/

Brooks Shane Salzwedel is a Califor-nia-based artist whose mixed-media art juxtaposes man-made constructs and nature. He’s been around for awhile, but I was unfamiliar with his work until I came across a recent post on one of my favourite art blogs, the Jealous Curator.

Salzwedel’s art evokes an ephemeral world shrouded in mist, like classical Chinese ink & wash paintings address-ing post-industrial themes . There’s also a vaguely unsettling quality to his work that hints at the post-apocalyptic, but the overall impression is more of a momen-to mori than scenes from Armageddon.

Some of his work consists of mountain-ous landscapes that look like a scene from the winter after a forest fire. In others, bridges, trestles, and partially dismantled towers loom out through the fog. Floating nests of broken trees emerge from polluted clouds. Monu-mental bones merge with snow-covered mountains, or drift through polluted skies.

While some of Salzwedel’s work is quite large, as much as 72.5 inches across, most of it is on a more intimate scale. Going by his portfolio site, his more recent work is usually on small panels, about a foot square. He also occasion-ally creates miniatures in old pill boxes or using cross-sections of old pipes as frames, like tiny lockets, which makes sense as he mentions vintage daguerro-type photos as an artistic inspiration.

His technique has evolved over time, but in essence his process is to draw on layered sheets of paper with varying opacities then coat the finished piece with resin. He layers sheets of Mylar, Duralar, and acetate, drawing on each layer with combinations of graphite, coloured pencil, or charcoal, sometimes adding watercolour paint, spraypaint, or ochre-tinted adhesive tape. The varying opacity of each layer creates a sense of depth that is finally sealed in place with a coating of resin. The overall collage/

assemblage effect is vaguely reminis-cent of a diorama or shadow box – but not the sort of collage in say, the work of Joseph Cornell, but more graphic, al-most like layered animation cels.

Interestingly, Salzwedel developed this technique exploring different media while still in art school. It’s pretty un-usual to see artists taking advantage of the translucent effects of materials like drafting paper or mylar – the only other one I can think of off the top of my head is the Canadian artist Betty Goodwin. When I was in art school a lot of people were inspired by Goodwin to work on drafting mylar but the idea of using it to create actual planes of depth and then seal them in place like Salzwedel does is completely novel to me. There’s a final-ity to it that’s very appealing.

I would say that my practice is primar-ily about drawing, but in the end I use a variety of different mediums. Once I’ve dipped the piece in resin, there’s no go-ing back. I can’t change anything, which is sometimes annoying. Sometimes I want to go back and modify an element, but my mistakes are trapped in the resin forever.

Salzwedel describes his work as a ten-sion between natural forces and the built world, especially urban development, and explains that in part his use of ex-tremely toxic resins is meant to reflect pollution and degradation. In the end, though, the landscapes are of his own invention, populated with hypothetical relics of human existence. The result-ing work is simultaneously intimately ephemeral, and removed from time – like a scene from a possible future, trapped in amber.

You can see more of Sawedel’s work on his portfolio website or on his Facebook page.

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Designboom caught up with the los angeles-based artist, brooks shane sal-zwedel speaking with him about his graphite, tape, resin formed collection of layered landscapes picturing nature and industrial development co-existing.

Designboom (DB): please tell me a bit more about your most recent se-ries. when did you start developing the works?

Brooks Shane Salzwedel (BSS): the content of my work has always incorpo-rated some sort of man-made structures surrounded by nature or even vice verse. the most recent body of work focuses primarily on turn-of-the-century bridges in mid-construction. I chose to work with bridges simply because of all the different types of materials that go into building bridges and the end product. cement, steel, wood, rope, cables, etc. it left a lot to play with in compositions.

DB: has there been an evolution in your work? were there any particularlypivotal moments in the progression of your style?

BSS: the most evolution I’ve noticed is more detail and having a better hand at the craftsmanship of my work. The larg-est moment I would say was a show I had in 2006 when I wanted to focus the content of my work on a very serious

family accident. the death of my fa-ther who worked on an oil drill ship

off the coast of vietnam. the idea of death and human consump-

tion and nature all colliding.

DB: what role does ma-teriality play in the

construction of your projects?

BSS: a lot. the graphite helps develop texture – to give it a painterly quality when up close. the mylar is not only fun to draw on but also gives the pieces the layered depth. and lastly the resin holds it all together and givesit closure so to speak. once it’s cast in resin…there is no turning back.

DB: what is your daily routine?

BSS: I try to dip my hands into a lot of projects so my daily routine isn’t always the same. with my work as a gallery as-sistant director in los angeles to design-ing and producing products for stores to my art when faced with a deadline of a show. the staple as of late…is eating an apple in the morning and the rest is a mystery even to me.

DB: which artistic techniques do you prefer?

BSS: I suppose drawing. I never thought of myself of either a painter or drawer. mostly exploring materials…

DB: how do you choose your themes or subjects?

BSS: I’m often inspired by old photos from the industrial revolution and da-guerreotypes. those usually lead me into a direction for a theme or subject matter I’d like to get to understand more.

DB: is there any artist from the past whose work you have been particularly impressed with?

BSS: frederick casper, douglas hender-son, hieronymus bosch…just to name a few. and even though you said ‘past’ I’d like to throw in jenny seville.

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The street names of Los Angeles are some the only remnants of the seedy, money-grubbing boom of America’s oil industry. Many of the streets are named after the oil tycoons and oil towers of the early twentieth century. As the son of an ARCO drill ship crewmember killed by the opportunistic gas company’s greed in the 1980’s, the history behind these street names have become personal.

Many cities have been molded by oil derricks, oil towers and tycoon man-sions once littered across their terrain. The land itself becomes personal as well. I’ve become obsessed with oil drilling and its place in natural and ur-ban landscapes.

When these obsessions are drawn onto paper they become a mix of urban devel-opment and nature, as well as a prehis-toric past and growing manmade future. Though, my work may pull the viewer in with an ethereal beauty of nature, it’s basis is fueled by death and corporate fi-nancial gluttony.

The effect of my work is done with little more than graphite drawn onto pieces of dura-lar, which is then layered in clear gel mediums. This process creates a fog-like quality of picturesque scenes accommodating a dimension of depth. The textures that come from the some-times, aggressive pencil strokes on du-ra-lar have a painterly quality to them, which is then contrasted with lighter de-tailed drawing.

To build on top of the base process I use other materials such as tape; old dirty, yellow ochre colored tape along with printed transparencies and colored pen-cil. The labor-intensive process can be unhealthy and toxic if not treated cor-rectly; spray paint, resin, sanding of resin, spray gloss medium. The intended outcome is tranquil and disturbing at the same time.

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I’m very intrigued by Californian art-ist Brooks Salzwedel’s unique style and approach to these delicate works, that combine nature and rigid human-made structures. It’s nice to see work that brings in different non-digital materials to what we’re used to.

Using a combination of Staedler Graph-ite pencils ranging from 6H to 9B, tape and ‘Awful toxic resin‘, Brooks creates images that look like relics of nature and other objects frozen in time.

Brooks Salzwedel on Ape on the MoonI also love the gloomy and almost real effect that’s created by having elements between semi-transparent layers. They are also reminiscent of some of the pic-tures of flattened leaves you’d get in school science books.

Brooks Salzwedel on Ape on the MoonBrooks Salzwedel on Ape on the Moon‘When working on a piece I ask myself what images I want as the focus or in the foreground then literally draw the im-ages on the layer that coincides with the layer in depth. The layers are semi trans-parent materials floating between layers of resin.’ Brooks Salzwedel on Ape on the Moon is one of his newer works that

really engages the veiwers eye in the way that brings you all around the work with his varried uses of line within the tree trunks and the intruicate line work of the man-made structures.

‘‘Right now I’m working on new pieces with the use of gel mediums. I’m trying to break away from the resin and see what other materi-als I can explore and how I can add more graphic and painted elements.’’

tape, pencil and resininterview

http://apeonthemoon.com

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