Today we’d like to introduce you to Fawn Rogers.
Fawn, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I found myself living on my own at an early age. I had a desire to travel and see the world. I worked in a landfill to buy a ticket to Europe. Soon, I was sleeping on park benches in Paris and going to every museum I could get into. A lot of bread-scraped-with-garlic meals (laughs). But that experience cemented my passion for art, and my appreciation for the process of creating. And although I discovered what true loneliness is, I wouldn’t change a minute of it. After 60 countries, experiencing the extremes of homelessness to private jets, and 10 lifetimes worth of experiences in between, I often ask myself the same question, “How did I get here?” I guess all of that is in my work.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I really enjoy creating installations in addition to singular works. Through that process, I’ve learned to like off-roading. My work has grown beyond my childhood refrigerator boxes with chicken bones, but has its roots in those humble beginnings. The difference is that now some of it requires funding (laughs).
Every day is the start of my favorite works. I’ve got a lot of projects going at the same time. Luxury/cruelty, hunting/extinction, murder/protection, everything is a question of nature and a source of personal exploration. There’s a spider in the shower with you. Do you save it, kill it, or leave it?
Can you tell us about your upcoming September exhibition at The Lodge?
The title of the exhibition is Violent Garden. I’ve been playing with ideas surrounding nature and industry. Humanity has become its own force of nature. As more people have populated the earth, bringing with them mass consumption, industry has become more prevalent, challenging the survival of the natural world. I’m interested in this expanded concept of nature that also includes synthetic materials and forms that don’t occur naturally.
Violent Garden explores this idea through both reflective elements and through structural objects, which encompass the capacity to build as well as destroy, the conflict between nature and industry. The sculptures featured in Violent Garden range in height from eight to 72 inches, and are comprised of plywood (a material used for both building and caskets), urban ash, soil, ostrich eggshell (which was also used for the first documented globe), mirrored surfaces, and nails. The layering, tears and splitting of the plywood creates an end result that is at once solid and fragile, the delicacy, the prevailing determinacy of nature.
The sculptures are rectilinear. The perfect rectangle is something that you don’t find in the traditional concepts of nature, but it is a part of nature that humans created. I’m interested in this expanded concept of nature that also includes synthetic materials and forms that don’t occur naturally. Violent Garden takes the view that everything is nature, even the destruction of nature. It’s all evolution. The highway is part of nature. The production of poisons that it took to create these objects is part of nature. There’s something in me that rejects the poison, rejects the highway and rejects my human nature. But air can kill you back, so nature gets even, or rather it prevails.
Fawn Rogers: Violent Garden, an exhibition: http://www.thelodge.la/fawn-rogers/
Where: The LODGE, 1024 N. Western Avenue, Los Angeles
When: September 9 , Opening Reception, 6-9 p.m.
Exhibition runs through October 7, 2017
Gallery Hours: Thursday – Saturday, 12:00-6:00 p.m. or by appointment
What role have mentors played in your development as an artist?
Silence has always been my greatest mentor. But in recent years, I have hung out with artist Henry Taylor and exhibition director Sebastian Clough, and received great support from Lonnie Blanchard, along with Alice Lodge and Lita Albuquerque. I tend to be a loner, but spending time with all of them has really influenced my artistic growth
Contact Info:
- Website: http://fawnrogers.com/
- Email: info@fawnrogers.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fawnrogers/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fawn.rogers.10
- Other: http://www.thelodge.la/fawn-rogers/
Image Credit:
Profile photo: Blake Carmichael
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