Robert Dohrmann
Leon Richmond's Psychic Secretions
The Batesville Area Arts Council presents Leon Richmond's Psychic Secretions, an exhibition by Robert Dohrmann, at the BAAC Gallery on Main (226 E Main St) March 5 - April 20, 2024. This exhibition is sponsored by First Community Bank.
Artist Statement
Why is when, and now is why, and we will ALWAYS want, AND all is “What the holy crap!”
Never has this been an obstacle for lucid critical or crucial thought for whom the dummbbbell tolls in the skies of material wantonness. Q: How did we even get here? The need’s, creed’s and greed’s of all the wants are re-assembled in this body of work. Faux luxury facilitated by dead corporate machines like Sears, JC Penny’s and Montgomery Wards with 1200 page catalogs are a good place to begin perhaps. Paper bricks printed on glossy non-archival paper layered to the sky for empire building. If aliens from outer space were to visit us right now (PLEASE help us now!), many of their questions could be answered in those catalogs.
Core samples have been gathered in these non-fine art things and born again from merely rummaging through the graveyards of consumable "goods" re-swapped for more $$ in the stores of thrift and performing fleas. By the process of cultural anthropology, many of these cheap consumer goods have been given a new life, again to adorn the walls and tables of mainstream America. The artist has found inspiration in the cheap stuff of yester-year, thusly re-arting the stuff that was mass-produced to give the façade of style and class. So hurry! We’re running out of stuff fast!
The white middle/upper/other classes examined have been recorded in both the good and bad books of history and consequently flushed out the birth canals of the unimaginative landfills (progress). Facsimiles with objective meanings defy our understanding in the rubbish now, yet provide proof-positive of who we were, who we are and what we mostly still want to be. So uselessly useful in their time now become "utilitarian fine art" again for their utilitarian purpose in the third place. Artistic alchemical license has freely given the artist a full-on-all-out-all-American stratagem with these junk store findings. America in its most peculiar vintage hour… American at its final artistic process…
For now, we look to the past for where we went wrong, right and/or left. Based on the hunting and gathering of antiquated pictorial evidence, allegorical signifiers, aggressive branding and personal insider insights, observable clues are given in an absurdist, unflinching and often lowbrow way for your viewing entertainment. So for now, enjoy!
Biography
Bob Dohrmann received his MFA in Painting and Drawing in 1992 at Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington. In 1999 he took a position at The University of Oklahoma, mainly teaching foundation courses. Over the years he has taught a variety of Studio and ARTC courses, but currently the bulk of his current duties have been sophomore drawing, collage & assemblage area and comics & sequential art.
In 2018, Dohrmann took the pseudonym Leon Richmond. In combination with traditional found 2D and 3D materials, the objects used to construct his body of work consist of thrift store large romantic cardboard print paintings, shadow box clocks, unlistenable LP records and a variety of 3D objects for assemblages. The process of cultural anthropology (picking though thrift stores) is conducted anywhere he happens to find material Americana ephemera. He likens these stores to museums (also consumer graveyards) where billions of affordable consumer goods go to die and hopefully be reborn. When he finds something that piques his curiosity, he “re-arts” the object and gives it a new life through remix and mash-up strategies. The antiquated appearance in the found pieces are crucial, as each vintage object comes with a ready-made veneer of age. This age signifies American consumer history and points directly to our current relationship to many concerning topics of today. His work mainly addresses the impacts of: 1. Middle/upper class consumerism, 2. Low-cost mass production (and planned obsolescence), 3. Unpacking the subjective and social well-being of traditional home and domestic life, 4. Unmonitored capitalistic greed, 5. Climate concerns, 6. Patriarchal power systems, 7. The legacy and dilemmas we are leaving our youth and 8. White American hierarchies.
