Marla Panko
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Marla Panko STATEMENT I view the creative process as a metaphor for larger, simpler truths. I am guided by the desire to explore these truths through attempting to make visual sense of the complex world around us — to find meaning and order within the disconnected elements and discarded fragments of a chaotic modernity. My interest in formalism and compositional construction are translated through an intuitive-based approach. Collage encourages an immediacy and flexibility which allows for a process of alteration and layering, and also promotes the reference to modern culture through the use of appropriated materials. As I work at trying to uncover relationships between various visual elements, an initially complex composition is slowly edited to create a simpler and more cohesive space. Images, shapes and colours emerge, evolve, fade and reappear, gaining and losing their significance in the overall structure of the space. The meaning and relevance of these fragments to each other continually shift in context which I find both exciting and intriguing. In the end, the work is less about the co-existence of fragments than it is about creating a new poetic hybrid. BIO Marla Panko has been a practising visual artist for over thirty years. Her work explores modernity and geometric abstraction through painting, collage and fabric assemblage. She holds an Honours degree in Fine Art from the University of Guelph, and a Masters of Fine Art from the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada. She has exhibited her work since 1980 including shows in Canada, the United States, and Japan, and has had solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Burlington Art Centre, Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant, and the Carnegie Gallery among others. Her artistic practice is complemented by a diverse career in art instruction. She has taught at Brock University, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Burlington Art Centre, and has been a long-time member of the Dundas Valley School of Art faculty where she instructs classes in Colour, Composition, Collage and Painting. She also works as an artist consultant for early childhood education and is Director of the DVSA Gallery. ARTIST CONTACT [click to email] IMAGES
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