Recology San Francisco, Art at the Dump Artist in Residence Exhibitions: Work by Lauren DiCioccio, Abel Rodriguez and Kaiya Rainbolt

Lauren DiCioccio: Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)
Lauren DiCioccio makes meticulously crafted artworks that replicate everyday objects. She describes her subject matter as things that are “obsolescing,” such as newspapers or handwritten letters—forms increasingly abandoned in favor of more expedient and impersonal technological options. With a desire to memorialize these items, she has chosen the methodical and perhaps also obsolescing methods of sewing and embroidery, and has used scavenged fabrics and threads while at the dump.

DiCioccio draws parallels between her work and 17^th century Dutch and Flemish still life vanitas paintings which present mundane objects—an extinguished candle, a fading flower—as symbols for death and the brevity of life. Similarly, DiCioccio’s interpretations of objects found in the dump, such as travel postcards, books, and record albums, speak to the transitory nature of 20^th century pleasures. Other works include incandescent light bulbs, sheet music, greeting cards, as well as fabricated dead mice and rabbits. Works are similar in scale to their source objects and threads are left dangling in the detailed embroidery, as if the artworks were slowly unraveling before us. DiCioccio received her BA at Colgate University and is represented by Jack Fischer Gallery in San Francisco.

Implicit in Rodriguez’s work is the idea of mutability. He describes fragments of objects as “words that can be negotiated, arranged and rearranged into endless visual and communicative statements,” and he has approached the things he has gathered from the Public Disposal and Recycling Area in this manner, deconstructing and reconstructing, ordering and shifting. Rodriguez embraces change through his working process as well as through his use of materials, such as tape, which allows for quick modification and restructuring. Even finalized sculptural forms still express the potential to shift, morph, or be perceived in new contexts.

Kaiya Rainbolt: Upscale
During her residency, student artist Kaiya Rainbolt has brought together her skills as a sculptor and metalsmith to create sculptural works of oversized earrings, necklaces, and lockets. Using scavenged materials such as plastic light fixture panels for gemstones and toilet floats for pearls, Rainbolt has made works that are both surprising and beautiful.

Rainbolt’s sculptures explore ideas about fine jewelry’s cultural role as a symbol of affluence, and put this in contrast with other less flashy definitions of accomplishment or happiness. The scale of the pieces, such as a five foot tall diamond earring, makes them the ultimate status symbols, yet on closer examination there is more going on below the surface of these works. Each sculpture has been crafted in a way that allows access to the interior of the piece where one can see scavenged mementos and items symbolic of what Rainbolt views as truly valuable. By juxtaposing these giant gems with things that may have had greater emotional meaning for those that once possessed them, the works question what is of importance in our day to day lives. Rainbolt is currently a student at San Francisco City College.