Crystal Rodrigue "Yesterday/ Today" image overlay on 23.5 K Gold leaf on rusted steel sheet

PONSHOP Studio and Gallery is pleased to announce our “First Friday” Opening Reception on July 5, 2013. The Gallery will be featuring the work of Crystal Rodrigue throughout the month of July. The Gallery will be open on First Friday from 6 to 10pm.

Crystal Rodrigue is a mixed media artist living in Spotsylvania, Virginia. She employs an intensive process of overlaying photos on gilded metallic backgrounds. Rodrigue creates an emphasis on the gilding process by placing photographs on raw steel in order to create a neutral background and, in effect, shifting the viewer’s focus to the gilded images. The images of architecture and power lines (man made constructs) are gilded with metal in order to further equalize their relationship to each other. The gilding beneath the images elevates the status of the raw photograph, inspiring their status and helping the viewer see the contrast between the image and the background. Rodrigue is dedicated to traditional film and photography. She accredits her technical influence to these sources. By the use of vintage cameras, unique films, and an endless curiosity of developing techniques, she is able to present the viewer with an interpretation of a private and vulnerable world that she experiences. Her work reinvents for the viewer a journey; a place in time; and objects overlooked or forgotten.

Crystal Rodrigue has been participating with PONSHOP as a contributing artist for over a year. During that time, she has exhibited her fine art as well as small works including: small scale image overlays on steel plates, Polaroids, vinyl albums, as well as two vinyl albums in the current “Remixed” Vinyl Album Show.