Estelle L. Roberge

Estelle L. Roberge
Magdalena, New Mexico, USA

STATEMENT

In the recent collages, I explore visual ideas through surfaces created from photographs and papers developed in my studio. Some of the cut and torn images originate from the world around me, while others are deliberately staged and photographed to achieve a conceptual outcome. I draw inspiration from a range of surfaces—textiles, marbles, magazines, wilderness areas, and tree bark. For example, I might float color into a bath of Irish moss and then photograph the resulting surface. From these photographic prints and papers, I create new collages by combining textures and forms—juxtaposing them with visual intention. The resulting two-dimensional surface becomes an entirely new image, constructed from two, three, or four mediums: photography, collage, painting, and printmaking.

My photographs of textiles, for instance, may remind me of bird feathers due to the airiness of folded fabric or the structure of the weave. I use these qualities to evoke ornithological references. A previously painted photographic surface might resemble a night sky, prompting me to use it in that context. One suggestion gives rise to another. Folds in textiles can take on figurative qualities—suggesting gesture, movement, spatial relationships, and a sense of ephemeral playfulness. I use these visual cues to further imply content and context, allowing the work to shift between abstraction and narration.

BIO

Estelle L. Roberge was born in Maine, the sixth of nine children, and grew up in a Franco-American Irish-Canadian household. She graduated from the Portland School of Art and the University of Southern Maine in the 1980s and later traveled west in search of employment. She began her teaching career at Navajo Community College in Tsaile, Arizona. Later, she pursued an MFA at Idaho State University, where she focused on wilderness desert landscapes in south-central Utah. After receiving her MFA degree in painting, she taught in Maine and Utah. Finally, she made a home in New Mexico, where she taught and continues to reside.

Currently, she is working on a new project entitled “The Iconography of a Textile Mill.” The project involves a series of photo/collages based on the immigration of the Québécois to New England, guided currently by David Vermette’s A Distinct Alien Race, Harriet Jane Robinson’s Loom and Spindle, William Moran’s The Belles of New England, and The Lowell Offering.

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IMAGES