Trash Baby - an exhibition of tangible and emotional debris that addresses healing and reformation after trauma @ Snell Hall May 23 - 27
Artist Talk @Snell Hall & Zoom Wednesday, May 25th at 5PM ID: 930 9627 6691 & PW: 577020
"Artist Statement"
Trash Baby draws parallels between forgotten items generated from daily living and the emotional debris that lingers after trauma. Integral to the understanding of this work is the truth that the emotional and physical processes I endure while creating must match the form I create. If I am in emotional disarray, I focus primarily on my illustrative practice that features blurred and age-regressive forms. When I am seeking to present myself or mask intense past traumas, I focus on a more refined painterly practice. The collages and installations featuring compulsively collected items is the result of my attempt to survey my habits to process what their collection signifies.
Works featured here were crafted as I processed displacement, abandonment, death, and the formation and reformation of my being despite and in reaction to these experiences. Therefore, disjointed depictions of myself frequently appear as they splinter and converge through sculptural, illustrative, and painterly processes that embody articulation or age regression brought about through the cyclical healing process.
"Biography"
Robin Weis is a painter, illustrator, and installation artist based in Corvallis, Oregon. He attended Mt. Caz and Dad’s Workshop Residencies in 2021 where he focused on found material installation art practices. Most recently Weis launched the interactive exhibitions Liminal Atrophy and Benign INC. both of which blended domestic settings and found material installation to build community and shape conversations about healing.
He has been a featured artist with Garbage Fest Corvallis since 2021 and has had art included in Assemblage, Art of the Heartland, 64 Arts, Light Filtered & Making Faces at the World, the Joan Truckenbrod Invitational, and Major Arcana. Weis has organized community-centered exhibitions and window displays at the Corvallis Book Bin since 2019, currently works as a Student Outreach Coordinator at the Valley Library and is a Gallery Assistant at the Truckenbrod Gallery.
"Artist" talk notes
To truly understand artwork, it's important to assess it through a visual and empathetic lens. So much of the work featured in Trash Baby demands the viewer to engage with the work by assessing it based on its context within the system of the show. Text is almost a secondary feature as my art tags are obscured and affixed to the floor, providing distance from the viewer and causing them to first meet the work at its level before looking down on it and needing the associated verbal context. I am asking you to look at this work, feel it, and connect the symbols, forms, and refuse around you.
In my "artist statement" and "biography," I state that I'm connecting tangible and intangible debris, drawing parallels between the emotional refuse left behind from trauma and the tangible debris generated from daily living. This statement is factual but is also an almost superficial reading of this work.
To me, Trash Baby is about so much more. I am threading together pieces of my life that have been incredibly damaging and caused me to have to rebuild. The title "Trash Baby" refers to me, I was born from the literal and figurative trash of my upbringing. I compulsively collect debris and attend to its conceptual qualities, something that has made me feel like a very literal baby playing in the garbage. In many of my formative experiences, I have also had to very specifically attend to my anatomy.
As an AFAB(assigned female at birth) transman I hold the capability to give life and have frequently had my autonomy violated, causing the conception of this life to be forced. I very well could have been, could still be, the mythologized "man seeking an abortion" that has served as a point of critique of the patriarchal system in which we find ourselves today, where AFAB people fear that our bodies will be vessels for beings we cannot and do not want to sustain and where men are narrowly defined.
In this exhibition, I want to create space for engagement with this work and with me. I'm going to journey through the exhibition by talking about each piece specifically but I encourage questions, so just stop me if there's something you need to say.
Symbols, Themes, Words to Know
- Eggs- the use of eggs in my work represents rebirth/reformation and also connects me to my AFAB anatomy.
- Clothespins- the clothespins featured in "Shed Selves," "Point of Entry 2," "Meals Alone in 3B," and "Reclamation Tale, the Haze," belonged to my mother. She used them primarily with her sewing practice. They represent key points of trying to hold myself together and trying to present as such as presentation was incredibly important to my mother.
- The acknowledgement of varied, shed, or celebrated selves that
- AFAB- assigned female at birth
- FTM- Female to male (transgender)
Ways to Engage with Trash Baby
- Shed your trash whether it's tangible or intangible. Underneath "Gifted Trash" is a bag of shreds of practice that I've held onto. Stop by Snell and get rid of what you need to. The clear bag allows us to engage with the form after you've parted ways. It's important to understand what and why you've parted with your trash.
- Take a free poster or sticker. I love having art that folks can take and feel connected to.
- Leave your thoughts in the journal on the easel. I'd love to know what you think about my work, how you connect with my show, or critiques about what could be done better.