BCA Studio Resident | Robert Rovenolt: (no regrets)

The use of found objects has been the core tenet of my studio practice for nearly fifty years. My constructions, collage, assemblages and sculpture all incorporate castoffs and detritus.  I usually don’t actively look for these discards, but rather “let them find me”. Sometimes this process is accelerated by “finds” that “picker friends” save for me.

When incorporating found objects, one is never completely the master of one’s fate. It becomes a collaboration with chance, and the material itself is the source of inspiration. Within the premise that art is as much “visceral as visual”, I feel the use of discarded objects adds much to the equation. One’s response to an object in a new context, elicits in the viewer, a sense of layered richness and mystery.

“The sole purpose of the arts is neither description nor imitation, but the creation from elements which are always present but not apparent.”  —Raymond Duchamp-Villon, 1911.