Mirror of our time - The seductive images of fashion magazines are today’s reference of an idealized notion of beauty. In the magazines, faces tend to look similar, toward a glamorous self and a floating notion of sexual identity. This drove me to begin my collages by cutting the eyes and mouth, in order to cancel the signs of individuality. The disquieting compositions echo the multi layered world we are in.

The Jaali Series was inspired by my Indian residency. The work is done with gouache, pencil and bindi dots. The paint is applied with a thin brush that is used for miniature paintings in Rajasthan. Jaali is a term used for the perforated stone with an ornamented pattern that can be seen in palaces, forts and some residencies in Rajasthan. Often used as a screen, women could look outside their world without being seen.

The Belonging Series explores the concept of identity and mobility. I use phone book pages from countries I have lived in. These collages take the form of cultural references specific to the country of origin where the phone books were taken; a quilt pattern represents America, aboriginal art for Australia, mosaic for Italy, lacemaking from Switzerland. The work is about my migrating life and relationships between individuals, places and memory.
www.vivianerombaldi.com

Shredded - Collected with the patience of a forensic scientist, paper stripes emerge from my discarded documents, notes and paper artworks reinvent their own wheel of time.

Winter of Will is an offspring of my oil paintings. I collect and slice the paper rags used to clean my brushes and stitch the paper pieces into various grids.

Kitchen art is a continuing series of sticker collages that I began many years ago. They are based on products I have consumed, museums I have visited, and other labels that make their way into my life. By collecting and arranging the material, I am sensitive to the discarded details of everyday life and to the patterns of my consumption.

The Boxes are visual Haiku; small, dense arrangements of found items whose traces are too easily disregarded. Bright, refreshing and unexpected, these constructions reward the eye and spark the imagination.
www.paulinegaliana.com