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Roderick Slater - Mixed Media Artist, Born 1937

Roderick Slater - Mixed Media
(Painting & Collage-Assemblage) Artist, Born 1937


Every once in awhile, you should leave your blog to the experts:  Wikipedia.  They did such a great job describing Slater and his artistic background, I am going to leave part of this blog to them:   Roderick Slater is an American artist born in Goodrich, Michigan in 1937. He studied art at the National Academy of Design School of Art in NYC. His works include paintings, etchings, drypoints, and collagraphs and collages and he is best known for mixed media works combining painting and collage. Slater’s collages, composed on rectilinear grids, often include three-dimensional components and fragments of antique paper.  
So let’s interrupt Wikipedia to look at an example of Slater’s work:  


“Somewhere Between Two Days.”  


Acrylic Paint and Collage
Approximately 30 X 40 Inches Framed

The mixed media base is newspaper, around the edges are quotes from the stock pages, covered at times with gold and silver leaf and marked with black and blue wax pencil.  The base of the painting shows a landscape with an endless sky with repeat clouds.  His clouds are about repeat imagery.  The translucent blue paint with painted white clouds covers newspaper photographs.  On top of this endless sky we see a rectangular grid, with a piece of matboard covered in newspaper and a bluer sky again with more painted clouds.  
The back of the artwork reveals as much as the front.  You can see the construction that creates a small enclave that is filled with interesting small objects seen from the front:  Chest Piece, Egg Timer, a Plastic Pearl, a Penny, a Glass Marble, a Metal Ring, a Lego Block, so on and etc.  Above the enclave you will find a picture of an elk herd standing in a grove of trees.
This mixed media piece is complicated and cannot be viewed just once, it requires second glances and good light.  It is approximately 30 x 40 inches framed.  The title and additional information is affixed to the reverse.
Now, let’s get back to Wikipedia about galleries and exhibitions:  Galleries which have exhibited works by Roderick Slater include the Ann Jacobs Gallery in Atlanta, GA, Dryden Galleries, Providence, RI, Plum Gallery in Kensington, MD, and Frost Gully Gallery in ME. Slater's works have also been sold by auction houses such as Christie's in NY (August 9, 2005), Skinner Inc. in Boston, MA (May 15, 2009), Luper Auctions, Richmond, VA, and Julia Auctions in Fairfield, ME.
Slater's work Mnemonic Device was included in Paste and Pixels, a 2001 exhibition at Core Gallery in New Paltz, NY. A series of black and white drawings by Roderick Slater illustrates the book Up Here in Maine by Gerald E. Lewis, published by Pittsfield Publishers in 1975.  Slater has been cited as an influence by other contemporary artists, including noted American collage artists Jonathan Talbot and Sarah Bean.  Slater and Bean had a joint show at the Staunton Augusta Art Center (VA) in 2014.  
Not on Wikipedia:  Mr. Slater is essentially a freakish talent who loves endless details.
 

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