12″x13″; oil and collaged digital prints on canvas; 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
SYMPOSIUM AT KOLAJ FEST NEW ORLEANS 2024
Approaches to Material in Collage
Friday, 14 June 2024, 3:15-4:30PM
New Orleans Healing Center
Emily Denlinger, Emily Somoskey, Laura Cannamela, Suzanne Greenberg
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Kolaj Fest New Orleans is a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society, 12-16 June 2024. Visit the website to learn more, see an overview of the program, and register to attend.
Materials convey meaning and help viewers decipher artworks.
Emily Somoskey is a painter and collage artist who often uses a variety of media in her paintings on canvas. She writes, “I’m interested in combining photographic imagery with abstract painting to weave together moments of clarity and ambiguity that both articulate, disrupt, and complicate a singular understanding of the work, similar to our own perceptions of the world. These two mediums have a very rich and separate history, both alluding to different levels of ‘truth’ in their representation of an image. In bringing them together, I aim to create a pictorial space that allows the viewer to question the nature of what they’re seeing, and to dwell in the ambiguity and uncertainty that lies on the surface and within our own minds.” She will present a slideshow of her work and speak about why she chooses to work with multiple media and and how it adds the layers of conceptual framework.
5.5″x4.5″x.25″; cut paper relief collage; 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
Laura Cannamela writes, “My artworks suggest views of landscape at a time far in advance of the presence of humans, though remnants of the geological events they reference can still be observed in our environment today. Displaying a balance between the delicacy of the layers and the robustness of the forms, these works remind us of both the fragility and the perseverance of nature in our Anthropocene Age.” Cannamela will speak about “Process Collage,” a proposed new collage taxonomy appellation and how it relates to the materiality of artists like Jiří Kolář, Noriko Ambe, Andrea Burgay, Mark Bradford, Jemima Wyman, her own work, and others.
Artists Suzanne Greenberg and Emily Denlinger will discuss the materials they each incorporate into their creative work. They will reflect on their artistic process and how the materials and media incorporated can be a source of their inspiration. Walking the audience through the type of images and which materials will best communicate their visions and messages. They will discuss how they source and combine different media into their artworks and how they preserve their work through archival processes. Denlinger’s most recent series, “Gain of Function: New Mutation”, was created in response to research surrounding the intersections of the military-industrial complex, ecology, simulations, mutations, and futurology. Within this body of work there are several sets of different types of collage images which may be viewed and enjoyed individually but are intended to be viewed together, to reinforce and enhance each other’s meaning. Greenberg celebrates access to global art materials, fabrics and images and transforms them into powerful illustrations of shared sensuality and humanity. In her artwork, she cherishes the imprint of the hand, the imperfect, nontechnical way of making.
45″x60″; book and magazine pictures, lace and feathers on cradled panel; 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
ARTIST BIOS
Emily Denlinger has worked as Area Head and Professor of Digital Arts, Photography and New Media at Southeast Missouri State University since 2009. Originally from Ohio, she holds BFA in 2D Art with a Concentration in Photography from Bowling Green State University, and an MA in Digital Art and an MFA in Photography and Digital Art from Maryland Institute College of Art. Her collages have been exhibited across the USA and are held in collections internationally. In addition to her gallery practice, Denlinger creates accessible wearable art that is created for commissions or sold in the local community at boutiques and fundraising sales. In her free time, she works with the Cape Girardeau County Clerk’s office to promote voting and voter registration and as an election judge. Kolaj Magazine Artist Directory and www.emilydenlinger.com
Emily Somoskey holds a BA in Art Education from The University of Akron and an MFA from Michigan State University. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, most recently at Eastern Washington University and Hanson Howard Gallery in Ashland, Oregon. www.emilysomoskey.com
Originally from New Jersey, Laura Cannamela lives and works in Upstate New York. She holds an MFA from Queens College of the City University of New York. She is the recipient of several awards, including a 2021 grant from the Martha Boschen Porter Fund, the 2014 Platte Clove Artist-in-Residence Program, the 2008 New York Foundation for the Arts Mark Program, and a 2010 grant from the Freeman Foundation and the Five College Center for East Asian Studies for travel to Japan. Her work appeared in Cut Me Up Magazine #11 and the companion exhibit at Albany International Airport, “Souvenir”. She has shown work in group exhibitions in New York and her work is in the permanent collection of the Samuel Dorsky Museum. www.lauracannamela.com
Suzanne Greenberg is a New York City-based multimedia artist, specializing in photomontage with fabric and 3D elements mounted on panel. She participated in Kolaj Institute’s Artist Residencies: Collage and Illustration-Frankenstein and Collage in Motion. In 2024, her work will be presented in a virtual solo exhibition by the Sylvain Cole Gallery in Sitges, Spain. Instagram @greenbergsuzanne.
Kolaj Fest New Orleans is a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society, 12-16 June 2024. Visit the website to learn more, see an overview of the program, and register to attend.