ARTIST STATEMENT

 

I​n my work I explore the intersection of history, humanity and environment using natural materials and historical techniques to create contemporary works that ask what remains when cultures, landscapes and historical techniques are forgotten.

 

Paper is my primary medium because it is itself a record of origins. Made from natural materials, paper carries the characteristics of its source. Each sheet carries a unique texture, grain, color, and malleability. I treat that history as part of the artwork rather than something to conceal.

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My process combines paper with techniques drawn from quilting, bookbinding, leather-working and the fifteenth-century practice of slashing. I adapt these methods by hand and machine, allowing the material to determine much of the final form. The techniques I use become the artistic language through which I call attention to the processes nature has always used: accumulation, transformation, adaptation and preservation.

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In a culture increasingly devoted to the new, I am interested in what remains and what we might lose by failing to remember.  The works in this exhibition consider geographical and cultural ecosystems, where nature and human culture continually shape one another. Some evoke geological strata or living ecosystems; others draw from urban environments and cultural histories.

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BIOGRAPHY​

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​Lori J. Oxendine is an artist and designer whose multidisciplinary practice explores the intersection of history, humanity, culture and environment.

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She grew up surrounded by art, music, history and an abiding curiosity about how the world works. Her mother, a music teacher, taught her to recognize rhythm, repetition, color and lyricism; her father, a science, math and history teacher and painter, instilled a love of visual storytelling, history and what he described as nature’s role as the ultimate artist. Frequent visits to the Smithsonian solidified her fascination with art, geology, ecosystems and the stories embedded in the layers of the natural world.

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A graduate of the Corcoran College of Art and Design at the George Washington University, Oxendine has more than four decades of experience as a visual artist and designer.

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Her fine-art practice centers on paper and historical techniques including slashing, quilting, bookbinding and leather-working. Her richly layered works are inspired by geological formations, ecosystems, cultural traditions, urban environments and forgotten histories.