Robert Rauschenberg
Robert is an American born artist who is known for his ‘Combine’ works. A lot of his work involved multiple different materials squashed together, hence why I’m using him as an example for assemblage work. After going through his assemblage work, I can see that he is drawn to materials in their natural states. Stains add character and so forth. “He was in love with the nature of the materials and how they looked in their abandoned states.” https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/40/660
Rosalie Gascoigne
Rosalie is a New Zealand-born but Australian-based artist. I selected her as an example because the image of her doll assemblages piqued my interest more than others. Her work is assemblage as she hunts for her materials to bring them together in an oddly abstract way but with poetic purposes. I especially love how she sees her assemblages as ‘stumbling poetry’ which I can see the more I look at her works. Her former practice in Ikebana, the natural arrangement of flowers and nature, is what let her step into the direction of assemblage. “She was later dubbed a ‘hunter gatherer in a station-wagon’, collecting everything from sheep bones to Schweppes boxes for her art.” https://citygallery.org.nz/exhibitions/rosalie-gascoigne/ https://eprints.utas.edu.au/18232/1/Rosalie_Gascoigne,_1985_Final.pdf
Giuseppe Romeo
A few things that stuck out to me about this artist’s assemblage work are the aesthetics. Whilst the other two I have shown as examples have (mostly) let the chosen materials be themselves, Giuseppe has painted a lot of his so that they appear similar. After researching the themes of these particular works, I can see his concern for the state of the earth. By using found materials, ones that we consume and are constantly being mass-produced in factories, he is making commentary on waste and mass production. I love his assemblages, not just for the messages behind them ), but also the disorderly state of it.