A Matter of Debris

Art junkies feast on scraps in Mesa

Comments (0) By Steve Jansen Thursday, Jun 11 2009

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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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.”

Tuesdays-Sundays. Starts: June 12. Continues through Aug. 9, 2009