ARTISTS TALK: RON COPELAND

Artist Ron Copeland discussed his exhibit, Walking Lucid Through Mill Town Dreams, before a live audience at Pittsburgh Filmmakers/Center for the Arts Thursday. Here is that conversation! Ron's exhibit is one of several solo exhibits on display at the center and will be available until Agust 25th. We will be showcasing other artist talks throughout the next couple days.

Copeland invites you to explore the dreams of miners, mill workers and mailmen of an imaginary industrial town. There, they once forged steel into battle ship armor that won world wars and sculpted girders that sent buildings into the sky. Now that those days are long gone, the heat from the blast furnace and the thud of the hydraulic press echo only in their dreams. Using found and reclaimed materials; Copeland constructs works, paints typography and creates signage to pay homage to those who invested sweat equity into building an empire that too soon forgot them.

About the Artist: Ron Copeland is a multidisciplinary artist currently living in Pittsburgh. Originally from Canton, Ohio, his post-industrial aesthetic and mantra of reclaim and recycle derives from growing up in the Rust Belt region. His early artistic vision focused on photographing blighted buildings, factories, and defunct signage, which then became content for screen prints and paintings. While on his journeys exploring the reminants of an ever-changing economy, he collected found bits of broke and disregarded materials that that would become his canvases. Copeland creates work in sculpture, painting, assemblage and lighting. After devoting years to working with reclaimed material he has since developed relationships to reclaimed scrap and decomissioned materials from many sign shops, art galleries, and museums. Ron's original motivation of salvaging pieces of the past has turned into a large project of recycling commerical materials into new forms and compositions that celebrate our collective history.
Info courtesy of http://center.pfpca.org