Portfolio - Ruined 2015

My interest in working with fire took me back to the primitive pre-literate people who lived in caves and drew images on the rock walls. Back to Fire. Fire as destroyer; fire as creator; fire as purifier. Fire is part of pain, and fire is part of pleasure.

I used fire to burn holes in my older paintings, burning through myself to the core, seeing both sides of me, seeing both sides of the canvas at once. Adding bits of wood, tape, wire and rags that I also charred, the remains of a fictitious industrial warehouse fire; the detritus of work done, somehow the bits and pieces attracting one another to form compositions on each side of a RUINED canvas.

As two of my sisters wrote,
“These works are so solid yet filled with hole...”
“By deconstructing the canvas itself, Schiff explores her vulnerability which underlies the process of creation/human endeavor/personal connection.”

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