Artist Sandhi Schimmel Gold rescues paper waste: advertising ephemera, menus, greeting cards and more to create eco-friendly fine art celebrities can’t get enough of
Every American receives close to 560 pieces of junk mail each year. Those billions of pieces of junk mail—if laid end to end—would circle the globe more than 240 times. About 50% of it ends up in landfills.
Schimmel Gold’s first solo museum show is at the Springs Preserve Museum in Las Vegas through March 14. The Springs Preserve is a 180-acre cultural institution designed to provide a vision for a sustainable future. However, Schimmel Gold currently has art on display in galleries in several cities in North America. Schimmel Gold is also featured in the recently released 2010 edition of Ripley´s Believe It or Not! annual book, “Seeing Is Believing.”
About the Art
With a variety of mediums to choose from, Sandhi Schimmel Gold prefers junk mail. The Arizona-based artist creates amazing portraits by upcycling paper destined for landfill. “My pictures are made of thousands of incongruent pieces—images and text.”
Schimmel Art was founded with a mission: to create extraordinary fine art while re-using materials that might go to waste. The artist recycles canvas and frames and uses adhesives and lacquers that are acid-free, water-based and non-toxic to complete her work. It is truly eco-friendly fine art.
How The Art is Created
Schimmel Gold marries beauty and ecology. The artwork asks: What is beauty? She re-uses the very images that arrive via mail. She chops them up to create an entirely new illustration of beauty. “I believe we are an aggregate of tiny bits: who we are and where we´ve been—or who we pretend to be,” Schimmel Gold explains. The artist includes personal objects, photographs, even tax forms in her art.
The art is created in a colorful and complex way this artist sees the world, and the art that evolves from it reflects her need to recycle and to create beauty. Schimmel Gold is a Synesthete—a person who experiences the fusion of two senses—a blending of color and numbers, taste and shape. It’s a rare phenomenon, and Schimmel Gold is considered a “true” Synesthete artist along with David Hockney, Joan Mitchell and Leonardo Da Vinci.
About the Process
“In my world, words, numbers, and sound are infused with color. I do see things differently. My brain is the projector—placing images on blank canvas.” The art is completely handmade; each original can take several weeks to complete.
Schimmel Gold began her professional career painting artistic murals, went on to design consumer goods and later produced retail displays and stage sets. She was always painting custom portraits on the side and is now dedicated to her art full-time.
Her Current Exhibits & Commissions
Schimmel Gold´s junk mail mosaics have been displayed at various juried shows, gallery exhibits and museums. She has an established clientele of private and corporate collectors in the United States, Asia and Europe. This summer, Translations Gallery in Denver, CO will host a solo exhibition of the artist´s work.
Recently, the artist completed two large commissions. One, for musician Don Miggs — a custom portrait of wife, Lisa DeBartolo Miggs is 48×72” was a surprise gift. Another, a 36×72” landscape of the Rocky Mountains, hangs in the Molson/Coors headquarters in Golden, Colorado — various pieces of Coors packaging and marketing materials were upcycled to create the work. Celebrities who commissioned Schimmel Art portraits include: Kevin Sorbo, Holly Robinson Peete, Deanna Russo, Eva Jeanbart Lorenzotti, Billy Bush and Nancy O’Dell.
Source: PRWeb
The liveeco team
