By Amanda Estes

Staff Writer

    Karen Gelardi’s interest in natural forms is
oriented around a broader fascination with the visual manifestations of
something that has been broken, interrupted or damaged.

    “If you’re driving down the highway, the trees that
are really messed up-looking that got cut because of the telephone
cables or that got chopped down or died because the tree next to it was
taller, the ones that are just getting by…I think visually they become
the more interesting forms,” she said during a recent interview at
Front Room Gallery.

    Gelardi’s solo exhibition of new artwork, entitled
“Saco Bog,” will run through July 29 at Front Room Gallery, located at
378 Cottage Road in South Portland.  

    The exhibition features paper collages and sewn
sculptures made from drawings Gelardi silk screened on to cotton, linen
and velvet fabrics.

    In the work, Gelardi brings broken pieces together to create interacting forms.

    “I think it comes from an interest in contemporary
psychology really and my own… way of thinking,” she said of this aspect
of her work. “I think that we are always being interrupted and…I’m
interested in adapting to things that end or things that are damaged or
broken…how can you be resilient?”

    The South Portland resident, who studied painting at
the Rhode Island School of Design, said the two and three-dimensional
components of her latest work represent an evolution from her nature
drawings.

    “It’s a very important part of my process,” Gelardi
said of drawing. “Even when I’m working with sculpture, I think of it
as drawing. I was looking for ways to continue to develop the drawings
further and I was interested in turning them into three-dimensional
objects.”

    Gelardi, who has gone through periods of “obsession”
with pinecones and broken twigs, said she has spent the last few years
experimenting with fabric. With her “day job” as Associate Creative
Director for Angela Adams’ collection of handcrafted accessories,
clothing, glassware and home furnishings, Gelardi said fabric was “part
of my language.”

    Within the last few years she began experimenting
with fabrics and sewing together cylinders that began to resemble logs.


    “I found the forms I was making were mimicking the
forms I originally observed in nature,” she said. “I would draw plants
and sticks and pinecones and…then when I was making the
three-dimensional stuff, it just started to have the same shape.”

    With 70 percent of her new work complete, Gelardi
said she was looking for another layer of meaning. As she took a closer
look at the collages and fabric sculptures, she began to see elements
of the Saco Heath preserve, a place she had visited several times over
the winter.

    According to the Saco Bay Trails Web site, centuries
ago, the Saco Heath consisted of two acidic ponds. As the acidity of
the water hinders the decay of plant material, sphagnum moss or peat
began to build up in the ponds, gradually creating peat mats that grew
together to form a “raised coalesced bog.” Visitors to the preserve can
walk across the heath via a floating boardwalk.

    “It’s just a very unusual environment,” Gelardi said
of her interest in the bog. “The things that grow there have to adapt
to the acidic environment so they’re kind of scrappy…”

    Deprived of nutrients, she said the trees in the bog
are short and yellow. In her sewn, fabric sculptures, also short in
stature, Gelardi saw aspects of the trees. When setting up her
exhibition, Gelardi said she chose to hang everything low in the space
to create the feel of a landscape that surrounds you, but doesn’t
overpower you.

    Gelardi said the paper collages, made from pieces of
paintings, photocopies and tape; remind her of the moss because they
represent a visual landscape that is difficult to navigate.

    “I was very interested in taking my drawings and
having them expand like a growing organism,” she said. “So I make them
repeatable so they can expand so I took lots and lots of photocopies
and taped them together kind of like the way the moss grows in the
bog,” she said.

    When trying to navigate a complicated concept,
Gelardi said it is best to break it down into smaller components and so
her collages also contain elements of geometry. Gelardi said she has
always been drawn to triangles starting at a very young age as her
family had a small business making a toy called Triangles and Links.
The toy had red, yellow, blue and clear triangle cutouts that could be
transformed into various geometric sculptures. Bringing her work full
circle, Gelardi added that she grew up in Cape Porpoise, right on the
marsh.  

    Gelardi said her artwork is more “sparkly and
colorful” than the muted tones of the bog, but if one looks really
closely they can find bits of color.

    Some of her smaller sculptures resemble the green
and red British soldier lichen that sprout out of the boardwalk and
provide bits of color. In the spring and fall, Gelardi said the colors
of flowers and blueberry bushes also break up the landscape.

    “If you came to see the show to see this and then
went to the bog, it would take a while to shift your perspective..,”
she said. “You have to look closely to see all the pops of color that I
have in the work.”

    For more information about Karen Gelardi and her artwork, visit her online studio at www.karengelardi.com.

    Front Room Gallery is open Thursday through Sunday,
from noon to 5 p.m. or by appointment. For more information, call
767-9070.