Making Their Mark

Making Their Mark
March 16 - May 25; Reception, May 18, 1:30-3:30 PM
Rona Conti, Mark Del Guidice, Cui Fei
The Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, Massachusetts

Rona Conti’s handmade paper pieces, now on exhibit in “Making Their Mark” at The Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, are not paint on paper but are made up of paper pulp itself, applied and layered collage like in a myriad of ways so that they become all of a piece. Many of the pieces include fragments of writing from the Japanese calligraphy the Belmont artist has been studying since 1999 along with marks in red-orange ink which serve as “remarks or comments” by her teacher in Takasaki, Gunma, in the foothills of the Japan Alps.

All of the pieces were produced in New York City at Dieu Donne Papermill. While the process is very direct and spontaneous, it requires a great deal of equipment and preparation before, during, and after the making of the artwork. An artist wishing to work in this medium, creating what is sometimes called "pulp painting", must find one of the few existing special studios in which to do this work.

When Conti was first introduced to hand papermaking, she recalls, “the tactile and sensuous quality of the paper pulp, the compelling texture and light of the white sheets, the glorious color of the pulps, and the myriad possibilities of process, enthralled me immediately. Choosing my palette in advance, dreaming images, arriving to the sight of the colored pulps layed out like a huge crayon box, I found myself excitedly and completely absorbed in the process.”

In 1999, she spent the first of several years living northwest of Tokyo in Gunma, Japan where she was able to find a calligraphy master teacher, the main goal of her journey. With Kobayashi Sensei's encouragement and sponsorship, she was able to spend another year in Japan on a cultural visa for the sole purpose of studying calligraphy. She has made six trips to Japan since then to continue her studies. In the Dieu Donne studio, she explored new ways of image making, sometimes incorporating her calligraphy. She uses fragments of practice work on which her teacher has made “comments” in red- orange ink. Compellingly beautiful, the circles signify achievement, the more circles, the better the writing.

“Making Their Mark,” includes two additional artists, Mark Del Guidice and Cui Fei whose works demonstrate the inventiveness and creativity that is a critical part of the art-making process. The exhibit is scheduled through May 25.

Press

• Belmont Citizen-Herald
• The Art Complex Museum