The Handwerker Gallery at Ithaca College is pleased to present WHAT DID WE GO THROUGH? EVERYTHING HAPPENS AT THE SAME TIME a solo exhibition by Rhonda Wall, Running from October 27th through December 7th. The opening reception is on October 27th from 5 – 7pm and will feature remarks by the artist at 5:30pm.
In her artwork Rhonda Wall creates hybrids of factual and fictional subject matter to transport the viewer to another place – an invented world where past, present, and future events merge into one, where everything happens at the same time.
Wall appropriates images from everyday media that we are bombarded with including printed matter, found internet material, and her own photographs. Works are assembled using carefully arranged images that are augmented with paint. Themes center on anything happening in the public conversation. Technology and nature intersect with feminism, pop icons, scientific breakthroughs, and 60’s space exploration. In the studio, she obsesses over unpredictable and seemingly unrelated events that are happening simultaneously all around us. This results in panoramic scenes that feature stylized figures comprised of dozens of seemingly unrelated images. The resulting work becomes an altarpiece memorializing our news diet.
In reflecting on her practice and the [un]realities of what is covered in the daily news cycle, Wall asks herself “how is this game going to end? It just has to play itself out; I am an observer and a participant. In the end, my work has always been and continues to be about survival.”
Rhonda Wall was born in Boston, Massachusetts, she holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA from Vermont College. Wall has been creating paintings, drawings, collages, mixed media constructions, installations, digital prints and performance art pieces since 1978. Her solo exhibitions have been at SpringBreak Art Show, NYC, Intersect Aspen Art Fair, Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris, RE:find Gallery, PA, Accola Griefen Gallery, NYC, Princeton University, NJ, Allentown Art Museum, PA, Lafayette College, PA, Lehigh University, PA, Northampton Community College, PA, Cedar Crest College, PA, Mississippi State University, Sensory Evolution Gallery, NYC, and B-Side Gallery, NYC. Her work has been reviewed in Whitehot Magazine, ARTSINBUSHWICK, Bloun Art Info, Kolaj Magazine, ARTNews, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Arts Magazine and The Morning Call. Wall’s artwork is in numerous public and private collections including, Lehigh Valley Health Network, PA, Best Products, City College of the City University of New York, NYC, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT, McGraw Hill, NYC, Needham Harper & Steers, NYC, University of North Carolina, Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC, Housatonic Museum of Art, CT and Keith Haring Foundation
