Photograph by Franchesca Esquibel
Santa Cruz Mountains resident Rob Voice takes the term 'found objects' to a new level in his art exhibit at Saratoga's Aegis Gallery.
Local artist 'bones up' for exhibit
By Shari Kaplan
Make no bones about it--Los Gatan Rob Voice finds ribs riveting, femurs fascinating and skulls scintillating. Working under the premise that one person's trash is another's treasure, the Santa Cruz Mountain resident has taken a unique blend of mediums--including animal bones--, crafted an even more unique exhibit, and installed it at Aegis Gallery, at 14531 Big Basin Way in Saratoga. The Bone Yard runs through Oct. 29. Only two days longer, and it could have closed on a more fitting date.
A biochemistry major by education--with some art classes along the way--Voice recently returned to his home state after working in New Zealand as an immunologist where, among other things, he developed a vaccine for psoriasis and developed therapeutics for tuberculosis and rheumatoid arthritis. He also has worked in the biology field and is now involved with the Humane Genome Project.
What does all this have to do with his art?
Not that much, according to Voice, who is quick to chuckle at his own or others' quips and laughingly admits, "I'd make a great mad scientist!" Although his field has given him more than a passing knowledge of anatomy, Voice says the idea to use bones in art came about by accident--the accident of a deer, that is.
In February, he was hiking in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Lexington Reservoir when he stumbled upon a deer skeleton--not a carcass, just a bone pile. "That was probably the only clean skeleton I've found!" he laments.
After bringing the bones home, he threw them on a woodpile outside, and later into an old wooden drawer. "Then a light came on in my mind, and I thought 'oh, that looks kind of nice!' " he recalls. "It was serendipity. I immediately started in collecting bones."
He offers a more revealing look at the method to his madness in his artist's statement at the gallery: "Bones are hand-picked from random cougar kills in the highlands, as well as the more convenient roadkill from Highway 17: 'Stop-N-Scoop.' " His backyard colony of dermestid beetles--the piranhas of the insect word--strip all tissue off the bones. Afterwards, Voice further purifies them with hypochlorite bleach and hydrogen peroxide.
Then the creative process can really begin. Although Voice has previously done work in oils, acrylics and performance art, he is now enraptured with his mixed media pieces. Along with various animal bones, they also include redwood branches; twisted, reddish-brown madrone branches; sharp blackthorn twigs; dried corn seeds and wheat stalks; thistles; reeds; eucalyptus bark; bird feathers; satin; gauze; bottles; chicken coop fencing and barbed wire, both modern and antique. Almost all of the "art supplies" come from the Santa Cruz Mountains, although the antique barbed wire hails from Mendocino County, where it is free for the snipping if hikers know where to look.
The titles he gives each mélange are equally varied and intriguing, including Give a Goat an Inch and She'll Think She's a God; I Ching Hexogram: 'Grace'; Bones & Bordeaux; Be Bop Bone; My Mom Shot this Deer; Bug; Earth and Human Genome Project.
"One of my goals is to make art accessible to everyone. I try to inject humor into my titles, without offending people too much," Voice says.
He cites his artist's statement to explain another of his goals--that of transforming repulsion into wonderment. "Bones often induces thoughts of death and the macabre; however, I perceive them as one of the many essential elements of life and love," he explains. "Arranged in three-dimensional form, they highlight the essential embodiment of structure, the true framing to every animal on this sacred planet."
For gallery hours or more information, call 408.867.0171, or visit www.aegisgallery.com on the Internet.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
