Art Exhibition: Beautiful Remains

Rodney Veil's Artist Statement for Beautiful Remains

What is a magazine? The process of making a magazine is art. Magazines are carefully choreographed and crafted windows onto a world of ideas, images, and flights of fantasy that act as guides to worlds beyond our imaginations.
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What if I  took pieces of magazine paper and wove them into shapes and forms? I began this process of weaving paper over two years ago, rooted in childhood memories of weaving sweetgrass with family and caretakers. Gentle reminders of southern traditions handed down for generations, of the common practice of people of color in “making do” and employing the alchemist feat of turning something so easily disposable into works of art.
 
This particular exhibition is all about slowing down and seeing the familiar in the abstract. Taking common everyday materials that I have rearranged to speak in new ways, a language of desire, a swirl of color, and patterns redefined.
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Taking the used, and discarded and crafting something that can remain beautiful inherently, is my way of challenging us all to see the beauty surrounding us.