Artist knows what to do with paper

By Pam Zappardino, Art Critic Thursday, September 13, 2007

I am surrounded by piles of paper. It comes in the mail every day. I go to a meeting, I come out with more. If I buy something, it's in the bag: coupons, receipts, wrapping (not to mention the bag itself). People hand it to me on the street. People wish me happy everything with even more. Folks I work with seem to think I need a copy of everything, maybe two. Egad. I don't know what to do with it all.

Nadya Volicer does. She shreds it, she weaves it, she folds and crumples it until it flows and layers forming worlds familiar and surreal. She makes it into art. Recycled objects have been finding their way into Volicer's work for a while now, pieces of wood, rusty metal, found bits of this and that.

"Most recently, this interest in recycling led me to incorporate other salvaged materials into my work," she says, "such as used paper and cardboard. I am interested both visually and conceptually in piecing together many small parts to make up a whole."

Her aptly titled installation, "This Land Is Your Land[fill]" has transformed the Rice Gallery in McDaniel College's Peterson Hall. When you walk in, you know something is afoot. As if coming upon a wondrous vista you crane for a better view, then spy the scenic overlook, a wooden platform just like Yellowstone's that makes you a part of your surroundings. A Lilliputian landscape comes into focus: buildings, mountains grasslands, high places and low, bright hues and muted. A woven paper riverbank holds the flow of shredded paper in its course. Looking upstream, the source cascades in falls over paper cliffs.

Despite its small scale, this work is enormous. It is unexpected. It is nuance and juxtaposed colors. It is exhilarating, with palpable energy. It is mesmerizing: witness, at the opening, the young girl about 9 or 10, sitting on the edge of the overlook for a very long time, taking everything in.

Installation artists are a special breed. Comfortable with the nonpermanence of their work, they forgo fixed conceptualizations in favor of interacting with their surroundings and allowing viewers to become a part of process.

"Generally, the final form of a piece is determined by observations made on-site; what kind of space it is, traffic flow, architectural particulars," Volicer says.

Nadya Volicer has extended the invitation. Why not take her up on it?

Pamela Zappardino teaches Art Appreciation. Reach her at ArtZap@aol.com.