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An exhibit brimming with contradictions

You can turn a blind eye to scruffy back alleys or industrial subdivisions — or you can see some artiness in their deterioration. Vanessa Mastronardi, who has a fine arts degree from the University of Alberta, has chosen to do the latter.

You can turn a blind eye to scruffy back alleys or industrial subdivisions — or you can see some artiness in their deterioration.

Vanessa Mastronardi, who has a fine arts degree from the University of Alberta, has chosen to do the latter.

Mastronardi’s first Red Deer exhibit, We Have Our Inheritance, is a show of digital and silk-screen prints at the Harris-Warke Gallery, upstairs at Sunworks on Ross Street.

Her display of decaying buildings is a blatant contradiction.

As the title of her exhibit suggests, Mastronardi is critical of people who allow their structures to fall into ruin. “(My art) is born out of someone neglecting, or not maintaining their property, so in a sense (it) comes across as a value judgment against it.”

Yet she believes that urban decay can still be seen as visually beautiful.

When viewed from a purely abstract-expressionist vantage point, the textures and colours of delapidated properties make them interesting, said Mastronardi.

Her panoramic print Wasted, for instance, combines three contrasting surfaces into one richly textured image.

The print We Have Our Inheritance shows a digital photo print of a boarded-up building’s exterior. Below it are crayon markings that were silk-screened and later printed onto Japanese rice paper. These layered, vertical crayon lines complement, yet contras with the cartoonish stonework pattern on the building.

Sacred Space shows a similar juxtaposition of images. A digital photo of a sheet-metal scrap iron building is superimposed with a second photo of a wooden fence. While the textures of the fence and metal siding differ, both vertically-lined surfaces visually mirror each other.

Mastronardi, who was drawn to the visual arts program after taking a drawing fundamentals class at university, enjoys experimenting with the collage-like effect of the digital printing/silk screening processes.

She was inspired by abstract-expressionist artist such as Mark Rothko, who deliberately used flat colour fields to create “apolitical art” during the highly politicized decades before and after the Second World War. “It was actually a very political thing to do,” said Mastronardi.

She hopes her show at the Harris-Warke gallery will make viewers see urban decay in a different light. “Sometimes we see things that don’t seem to have value anymore… and of course, they still have value — even if it’s only aesthetic value.”

Her show continues to Feb. 13.

lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com