Rhonda Barrett

Mussels with Barnacles
36″x18″; newspaper, paper clay, acrylic; 2020

Rhonda Barrett
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

STATEMENT

Influenced by a waste-not-want-not upbringing, I urge you to “make do” with the papers and materials I use to create fine art collages with a chigiri-e technique and wabi-sabi aesthetic. It is my mission to elevate lowly products, and the viewers appreciation of the earth’s natural resources, to match the stature of the trees by slowly layering little bits of paper into big art. I aim to create collages that speak to our consumer driven society and direct our attention back to simple pleasures.

BIO

Rhonda Barrett is an artist from Newfoundland, currently living in Nova Scotia, whose study of paper and Japanese arts finds her working in a chigiri-e style with newsprint. The waste-not-want-not attitude and nostalgia of her maritime upbringing is paramount in her choice of medium and also informs many of the images she captures. The use of newspaper as her primary medium is a nod to the temporal arts and our ideas of material value. She works out of her studio in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Rhonda has a background in architecture and design, but left that career in 2015 to pursue her artistic calling. She is currently a member of Visual Arts Nova Scotia (VANS), Canadian Artists Representation (CARFAC), and The Paper Artist Collective (UK) and Art 1274 Hollis, an artist run gallery. Her work has been seen in solo exhibitions and group exhibitions in numerous galleries in Nova Scotia, Vancouver, British Columbia, and Montreal, Quebec. She has been featured in local Halifax newspapers and on Global Halifax News Morning. Her work has been published with Murze Magazine and by Urban Ivy for their “Mothers in Time” series.

ARTIST CONTACT

[click to email]
www.littlebitsofpaperbigart.com

IMAGES

Happy
1″x1″; magazine, bread bag tag; 2020
Sunlight on the Water
8″x8″; newspaper; 2020
The Battery
24″x36″; newspaper; 2020
New Year
20″x16″; newspaper; 2020