Dot Paollo
Gallery Opening: Saturday, June 1 | 3-5pm
My practice involves collecting vintage toys and objects and employing them in my diorama photographs. This exhibition combines artworks from a few different series.
Some of photographs are narratives about the mishaps that cause the demise of these toys and vintage objects. I am illustrating the plight of the toys; how they have been stepped on, vacuumed, bisselled, burned, flooded, swallowed, lost, chewed up by the dog, run over by the lawn mower or buried after being left in the yard; only to find their end. Initially, I used legs and feet as my weapon of choice, like Monty Python’s trademark foot which he adapted from Cupid’s foot by Agnolo Bronzino.
In addition, I often create portraits of my toys. These photos include dolls, puppets, dogs, animals and other assorted objects. When I get a new toy, I often photograph it in front of a curtain or on my desktop with a piece of patterned paper as a background. The images are printed in a vintage photobooth style.
I use a Nikon D750 digital camera, and I print all my own digital images using an Epson P6000. I am also exhibiting black and white silverprints, created in a dark room that are hand painted.
I make a digital negative with Pictorico film and contact print them on a special paper. The photographs are painted with Marshall’s Photo Oils and pencils, a semi-transparent medium, made especially for photography in 1919 by John G. Marshall.
About the artist:
Dot Paolo was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She received a B.F.A. in Art Education and Sculpture from the University of Bridgeport, Ct. and an M.F.A. from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.
Dot is the owner of Rabbet Art Gallery, Inc. in Branchburg, NJ, founded in 1984. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Raritan Valley Community College in Branchburg, NJ.
Dot works in both black and white silver prints and digital photography. Her photographs are set up still lifes or dioramas that incorporate toys and odd objects into fabricated environments. All of the works are printed by Dot.
