Atchison Art Association

    Radioactive Day is currently on exhibit at the Muchnic Gallery in Atchison. Robin VanHoozer is a native Missourian and thriving artist. Her work has recently been displayed on national television during a May 2005 episode of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The exhibition will be open from November to the end of Decemeber 2005.

 Artist's Statement

    Whimsical paintings created with both abstract and figurative imagery combines in a unique way in my work. Abstract backgrounds surround more figurative elements of figures, game pieces, fireworks, and noisemakers. Oil painting and encaustic (melted wax) painting techniques are used. Encaustic painting technique uses melted beeswax with pigment and damar varnish. Heat is used to fuse the wax layers together. Large-scale oil paintings, encaustic paintings, and installation pieces continue the ideas generated in part by photographs that I have taken, only on a larger scale. Objects such as beads, fireworks, and bits of glass add a collage element to some pieces. A nostalgic feel with a present day kick gives my paintings an unusual and different visual combination.

    Radioactive Day's message is communicated through a variety of drawing and paint media, such as encaustic paint, oil paint, and oil pastel with elements of collage. Encaustic paint is melted beeswax with pigment and damar varnish built up in many layers. Elements of glass, paper, photographs, and fireworks have been added in some pieces. Abstract and figurative elements were combined in unusual ways.
    Radioactive Day draws on my experiences from childhood, family, and with the medical profession (good and bad). Figures and words tell the story of putting a "good front" on ridiculous or less then desirable situations. Routine, everyday, normal activities strike a balance between the ridiculous and the sublime. Family activities, traveling, and mundane daily life is interrupted when something "radioactive" happens. Words are used in several places to comment on unspoken agendas. While everybody's idea of normal is diiferent we an know that feeling when something "radioactive" happens.
    A whimsical element, game pieces, noisemakers, and fireworks have consistently been an image source in my work. Nostalgic figures are placed in situations that range from the ridiculous to the sublime. Having had several illnesses in my life that has placed me at the mercy of the medical profession I became fascinated by the minute by minute aspect of the lives of the patients. I was curious about how they spent their time, how they might be feeling and how their lives were disrupted. The mundane activities of everyday life such as getting a cup of coffee at the cofIee shop in the morning without something "radioactive" happening became of utmost importance. What were their daily lives like before they were under a doctor's care? What did they normally do? Everyone has days that are "radioactive" and nothing seems to go right. How does your idea of normal change when the "radioactive" day becomes the norm? Life changes when you long for the average, the routine, the normal, and the mundane and you live in the "radioactive" day.