Raymond Ghirardo and Megan Robert’s installation works have evolved from an awareness and study of many natural and unnatural landscapes and geologic features that particularly compel and attract. Locations as varied as the Badlands of South Dakota, the Rotorua region of New Zealand, Death Valley, California and the city of Prague provide imagery and audio elements incorporated with various sculptural objects and constructions. Examining the relationships among these landscape features determines the creation of imaginary terrains and archeological sites. Sculptural elements, video projections and manipulated audio recall the pinnacled topography of the U.S. Southwest and Australian termite mounds, the bubbling mud pools from the geothermal areas of New Zealand, the cracked curled earth of dry creek beds and abandoned eroded goldfields. Using the recorded real imagery from the natural environment, remembered form, and anthropomorphic exaggerations, there emerges a distilled sense of place. The works are studies of surface and texture as they meet the poetry of the moment – where the video medium creates room and is used to make rents in space, opening up to another reality.
Roberts and Ghirardo’s work of late has focused on the phenomena of reflected sound and video projected on water and the surrounding space. They have experimented with electronic sound and moving visual art forms for over three decades, producing a wide range of electronic/digital media art, recordings and sound/video/sculptural installations. These works often incorporate diverse technical elements: video projection within and upon objects, movement triggered sound and image, interactive mechanical constructions, sound spatialization and transduction, and digital animation.
Collaborators since the mid-70s their works have been exhibited internationally in a wide range of gallery, museum, festival, public and site-specific venues including Walker Art Center, Anthology film Archives, Oakland Museum, Center for Contemporary Art, Prague, Visual Studies Workshop, Maselnice Gallery, Cesky Krumlov, Consolidated Works, Seattle, and Infermental, Tokyo. Their awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts; grants and residencies from NYSCA, Yaddo, MacDowell, Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice and Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder in Norway, among many others.
