A Matter of Debris

It’s apparently “hip” to recycle, reclaim, and reuse these days, but when you think about it, the act of doing so is a little, well, ordinary. If anything, it shouldn’t be used as a bragging tool to up your indie cred.

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• Scott Lizama
• Jacki Orr

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On the other hand, the creative types showing works in the “Resurrect: The Art of the Reclaimed Object" exhibit, which opens this weekend at Mesa Contemporary Arts, 1 East Main Street, deserve all sorts of green-conscious props. The display of 55 pieces refashioned from found objects – including works by two awesome local artists, photographer/painter/muralist Scott Lizama and mixed-media/zine queen Jacki Orr – acts as a neo-ode to the Dadaist art movement.

Lizama’s Propaganda Collider #8 didn’t use recycled physical materials, but the colorful 30-by-35-inch digital print on stretched canvas that fuses multiple propaganda posters from World Wars I and II is striking nonetheless. “My recycling is more a concept whereby I find preexisting source imagery and alter it, but the final outcome is a digital printout,” says Lizama.

Orr took the more traditional found-object route in constructing Looking for a Holy Place for This. The stunning sculpture includes empty cans of Negra Modelo, candy wrappers, and a Happy Birthday wreath. About the piece, Orr says, “It's a shrine to human life. I would like the viewers to look at it and think it's interesting and beautiful and then realize they are just looking at a pile of trash.”