No Holds Barred
April 19, 2012
Text by By Kris Wilton   Photography by Courtesy of Roxanne Faber Savage
Rich with archetypal images and evocative color, Roxanne Faber Savageâs uninhibited printmaking reflects the psychologist Carl Rogersâs idea that âwhat is most personal is most universal.â
Savage mines everything from the art-historical canon to her deepest memories and fears, employing familiar images like houses and birds, often rendered with almost primitive gusto. If anything unifies Savageâs output, with its easy range of palettes, techniques and imagery, itâs her raw energy and frank humility: this is an artist whoâs willing to put it all on the line, and canât wait to do so.
Born in Boston, Savage studied at Boston University, Pratt Institute and Queens College before settling in Connecticut, where she currently lives and keeps a studio. She and her husband chose Fairfield County for its easy access to New York City, where he works in broadcasting and she works with the master printer Kathy Caraccio. But in Connecticut, she says, sheâs found a vibrant art scene in which to show, teach and trade ideas with a community of passionate peers.
As tantalizingly messy as her work can be, Savage defies the stereotype of the scattered artist, managing a sizeable teaching load while actively applying for fellowships, residencies and juried exhibitions. This spring alone, she has a solo show at The Orison Project, a new contemporary art gallery in Essex; she is one of six artists featured in the first annual Connecticut Printmakers Invitational at the Windsor Art Center; and her work will be shown in the annual membersâ exhibition Panorama, opening April 1 at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, where Savage prints and is a regular teacher. In May sheâll be included in Silvermine Arts Centerâs ninetieth anniversary exhibition in New Canaan.
The Orison show will present the greatest range of Savageâs work, including prints on Plexiglas, metal and silk as well as her Warholian wall installation Chemical Landscape. Here, Savage repeats one silk-screened imageârows of birds sitting on power linesâwhich she transferred from a photograph using paper lithography, a technique she considers among her specialties. âThereâs something about the grittiness of a paper lithograph that I really like,â she says. âI like clarity but also that worn-out kind of feeling.â
Part of an extended body of work dealing both with birds themselves and also with things âbirdishââpower lines, cages, clouds, the urban environmentâthe image was inspired by a car ride during which Savage and her family spotted thousands of birds spanning power lines near Monomoy Island off Cape Cod. âStop the car for art!â she cried, leaping out to capture the scene with her camera.
Set against a range of shades brighter or more âchemicalâ than the typical sunset, the repeated Xerox-like image nonetheless calls to mind common experiences: peering out car windows as a child and languorous evenings spent staring at a fading sky. At once familiar and mysterious, Savageâs avian imagery tends to spark viewersâ own memories. At a dinner party one night, she recalls, âEvery single person had a story about birds.â
If Chemical Landscape presents a stylized, ordered world, Savageâs more recent work delves into something much messier. Here sheâs moved on from birds to houses, an image whose personal resonance she admits sheâs still uncovering. In work after work Savage manipulates the core imageâa childish stick-figure houseâusing, it seems, every tool at her disposal. There are scratchy, primitive-looking etchings; triptychs adorned with disorganized doodles and drips and blobs of color; a crayon series in which the title Maison is furiously obliterated with thick, scrawling black strokes.
Itâs clear that Savageâs technical skill is such that she no longer needs to adhere to the rules; the effect is of a virtuoso cellist laying down the bow and going for the strings directly. âI think one of the things that makes my teaching and my artwork unique is that I try to be fearless,â she says. âIâm at the point of my life where itâs coming out of me. Yeah, Iâm afraid, but if Iâm afraid, so what?â
The key, she says, is getting it all out: âThen you refine it, you hone it, and thereâs the beauty.â â˘
Editorâs Note: To see more of Savageâs work, visit www.roxanneprints.com.
Share
You must be logged in to post a comment.