THE RURBAN FRINGE

Exploring Rurban Art – Hope Kroll

Posted on | August 5, 2009 | No Comments

Like the meticulous nature of her art … rural life exists in the details.

This month, The Rurban Fringe is pleased to introduce Hope Kroll, the fourth artist in our limited online series, as she shares her thoughts on her aesthetic and raises questions as to the existence – or non-existence – of art space within a rural/rurban setting.

Technique Of RepressionTell us a bit about yourself and your work.

I began drawing very early and, by the age of seven, was enrolled in my first art school. 

I completed my undergraduate work at the University of Illinois – where I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts – and then studied at the San Francisco Art Institute where I completed my Master of Fine Arts degree. 

Ten years ago, I moved from San Francisco to Paso Robles, a small town on California’s central coast.

My first studies were in oil painting … it was later on in college that I discovered printmaking, which is what really allowed me to break out and do something different.  I would draw a variety of self-portraits and then rip them up to create the image that would later be put onto the page.  I was also doing lithography and papermaking, but the main thing that excited me was my collages.  I then started to make scrapbooks with my torn-up images. 

That carried over into working with books … which I would cut up and piece back together in a variety of ways, usually with drawing or writing on them. 

I found that I kept turning back to the scrapbooks I was making for inspiration. 

Eventually, I started dissecting the books I was using and began doing collage full-time.  I’ve been working in this manner for over 10 years. 

I find the act of cutting and separating the image from its original context to be very satisfying.  It satisfies as much as any brush stroke or line.  Line used to be important to me.  It was in the line that I could lose myself … now I lose myself in the cutting.

Symbolic PosturingHow would you define your art?  What are the influences on your work?

While I would best describe my work as psychological narrative collage, I get put into the surrealism box quite a bit. 

I tend to be attracted to all things medical, freaks of nature, physical deformities, and the natural world.  I am particularly interested in using visceral terms to express psychological and emotional states. 

I like to display the disconnectedness between mind and body and how psychological problems can be manifested physically. 

Another theme I use is to incorporate flesh with machinery to create a kind of ‘Rube Goldberg’ of the human psyche.  I also enjoy cutting out machine parts, which I find to be particularly challenging.  That, along with veins and arteries are probably the most difficult to cut. 

A number of my pieces simply reflect my own fears, and I will often put children in the most horrific settings in order to juxtapose innocence with evil. 

Family TreeBirds play an especially important role in my work, often acting as spiritual messengers.  At times, I cut out images for the pure joy of it.

I’ve meditated on the second part of this question for a long time … I would have to say that while living in a rural setting has its own set of challenges, I do not particularly think it has affected my work … I would be cutting out the same images regardless of where I lived. 

In fact, I work in a windowless room and find it considerably easier to concentrate in a quiet environment with few distractions.

Living in a rurban area, how do you promote yourself and your work?  What is the local response to your art?

I have promoted myself largely through my website – HopeKroll.com.  People from all over the world have seen my work as a result of this site.  I’m also represented by the Triangle Gallery in San Francisco and will be included in a book coming out next May entitled Masters: Collage, by Lark Books. 

I was also recently contacted through my website and asked to participate in a perpetual calendar and day journal project, which will feature a different artist for every day of the year. 

My work has been picked up by countless blogs as well as a variety of different sites on the web, including DiscoveredArtists.com and many international sites such as Artists.de (Germany), wotartist.com, SaachiGallery.com (UK) and even a Polish website called QuaggaArt.com!

The local response to my work has been quite good. 

I have had a few shows at the local art center in the adjacent town of San Luis Obispo.  I have also shown at Silverstone’s tasting room and have a show scheduled later this year in a local restaurant, Big Sky Cafe.  I also have many followers in the area, which helps. 

While venues such as tasting rooms and restaurants would obviously not be my first choice, these are amoung the only available options locally for me to show my work.

Latent SeedsIs there a plight of rural artists?  Do you see any perceived challenges or opportunities as opposed to working as an urban artist?

There are a host of challenges to being a rural artist.  There are no museums, barely any galleries, and few – if any – other serious artists to speak with about the work in person.

There also isn’t any way to network here as people do in the city. 

This is perhaps a bit more difficult for me since I also do not drive; in that respect, I am isolated … even amoung the isolated.

There are also a very limited number of places locally in which I can find the books and photographs I use as my main source materials … although I have occasionally been successful finding my materials through online auction sites such as eBay. 

Also, I am rather fortunate in that my husband has a good sense of my aesthetic; he travels fairly extensively and is a great help in supplying me with a fairly steady flow of new materials. 

Of course, we are always rooting around book stores and antique shops and still make the occasional book run to San Francisco.  Occasionally, some of my fans will send me books and other items I can use in my artwork.

Thought ProcessDo you have any suggestions as to how rural and rurban communities can support a thriving local arts & cultural scene?

My best suggestion is to set up a website and get exposure online.  This was one the best things I have done to promote my career. 

Of course, being represented by a gallery has also been a great help in bringing the actual work to the public and, perhaps more importantly, to collectors.  This is particularly important for me as my work is mostly three-dimensional, making it somewhat more difficult to see on the computer. 

As for the arts and culture scene, it is very limited here and I am unaware of any local clubs.

***

To find out more about Hope and view samples of her work, visit her website HopeKroll.com.

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