Busacca Gallery

Soft City: Alessi II by artist Marilyn Henrion. Digitally manipulated photography, inkjet printing on cotton, hand quilted. Mounted and framed (2" frame). As a native New Yorker, the artist created this series of works to represent her personal take on the city, revealing its soft side, with unexpected visual treats lurking around every corner. Once Gotham’s hard unyielding surfaces are peeled back, the beautiful and complex patina of each facade is illuminated. These mixed media works represent a fusion of past and present. Ancient needlework techniques are combined with digitally manipulated photography and inkjet printing to create works of art that reflect contemporary aesthetic sensibilities. The presence of the hand stitching both animates the surfaces of the works and, at the same time, softens and humanizes the urban geometry by the irregular qualities of texture inherent in the materials and construction.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_media

Mixed media, in visual art, refers to an artwork in the making of which more than one medium has been employed. There is an important distinction between "mixed-media" artworks and "multimedia art". Mixed media tends to refer to a work of visual art that combines various traditionally distinct visual art media. For example, a work on canvas that combines paint, ink, and collage could properly be called a "mixed media" work - but not a work of "multimedia art." The term multimedia art implies a broader scope than mixed media, combining visual art with non-visual elements (such as recorded sound, for example) or with elements of the other arts (such as literature, drama, dance, motion graphics, music, or interactivity). When creating a painted or photographed work using mixed media it is important to choose the layers carefully and allow enough drying time between the layers to ensure the final work will have integrity. If many different media are used it is equally important to choose a sturdy foundation upon which the different layers are imposed. A phrase sometimes used in relationship to mixed media is, "Fat over lean." In other words: "don't start with oil paints. Plan to make them the final layer." Many interesting effects can be achieved by using mixed media. Often, found objects are used in conjunction with traditional artist media, such as paints and graphite, to express a meaning in the everyday life. In this manner, many different elements of art become more flexible than with traditional artist media.