Kassie Weidner

My work lately is focued on a body of work titled "Circle Portraits" that speak to ideas of existence.The portraits will not last forever, nor will the subjects they were modeled after. The tar paper and cardboard were made for different purposes, and for the time being they have been given alternate resting spaces in my art work. At some point, every person’s body will return in some capacity to the ground, in which the circle of life for what you are made of will start again. It can represent the smallest cells of your body to the large planet that we inhabit.
My creative process has evolved from an appreciation of spontaneity. For as long as I can remember I have doodled circles on paper. Last year I began working on a translation of those doodles on to canvas with paint. These doodles and paintings were very random and even came across as more experimental than finished products. They were missing something. Around the same time I hit this creative road block I began doing portraits from life. I did a number of these before I decided I wanted the circles to be a part of the portraits. Marrying portraiture with circles to create a cohesive final product was a challenge on traditional substrates, so further experimentation led me from canvas and paper to materials that were less conventional.
Using repurposed items as a ground for drawings helps me to emphasize the slightly messy look that I appreciate, as well as the essence of the random circle doodles and paintings that I enjoy doing. There is a difference in the sensitivity to care I take when starting a drawing on an expensive sheet of white paper, versus a ripped up piece of cardboard or a piece of tar paper. It is this loose style that translates in the type of creative process I enjoy when doodling circles.
The structure of the geometric shape of the circle, as well as a grid-like arrangement provide stability and purposeful nature to the less traditional mediums and substrates. After experimenting with these gridded portraits I was influenced by a few other projects in an advanced drawing class using transparency sheets and vellum type papers. Using the see through papers inspired concepts of layering in my work. I layer the image using the portrait as a mid-layer between the ground and top layers of cut paper shapes.
Going forward I hope to expand on the combined usage of grids, geometric shapes, portraits and layering, to their fullest potential using a variety of repurposed materials. It is my hope that this body of work will grow to include a large collection of explorations of this theme. 

Upcoming Events

Exhibition at the Miller Gallery at 33 Collegeview Drive in Westerville Ohio. Sunday May 6-Friday May 11th, 2012.