MULTIMEDIA/FILM
In the early 2000s, I began to experiment with audio in my work. By adding this new layer, I was able to create an entirely new experience in the installation environments I assembled.
In 2011, I was introduced to filmmaker, Rhonda Mitrani and photographer, Marina Font. Together we formed the collaborative, RPM Projects, and our first multimedia piece, "The House Inside My Head", was showcased at the Wynwood Art Fair later that year. Each artist brought their skills to the group as we went on to produce many well-known large-scale multimedia pieces together. This experience has continued to inspire each of us.
Selected Works
Fresh Out of the Oven
2019
By Patricia Schnall Gutierrez
Multimedia Installation
It comes as no surprise to say that mid-20th century American women, in their role as housewives and mothers, were encouraged to take pride in their cooking and baking skills as they devoted their time and energy to their husbands and children. Marketing companies often showed smiling women baking cakes and looking happy and content to be doing that and nothing else. Instant cake mixes were all the rage and from their invention in the Depression to their postwar popularity, they became an expression of American history, ingenuity, and a time-saving alternative for the typical American housewife.
In the exhibition, Fresh out of the Oven, a room of revolving cakes invites us to re-examine this iconic form associated with women. For the artist, who admits to making hundreds of boxed cakes over the years while juggling career and family, the notion of repeating this form with materials other than batter and frosting alters our perception. As the cakes twirl around in unison, one can sense an undercurrent of the feminine condition that the artist is familiar with. The walls further accentuate women’s typecast with digital photos and material collages.
Photo/Video credit: Shanti Adames
BLUE - 2016 (Above 1:31 film clip)
An RPM Project
Three-channel short film projected on (3) 7' x 12' screens
Since the 1950s, prosperity and the rise of capitalism created a lifestyle of consumerism, where browsing and purchasing material things evolved into a consumer culture. This popular ritual of shopping for a better life shaped our identity as a society. Many artists reacted to this consumer-driven way of life, revealing in their work that the relationship between shopper and material object is more of an obsession than a pastime. There are visible strains of this complicated relationship in the commonly known genre, called Pop Art.
In this three-channel video, the art of consumption is examined through the main character in Blue. She approaches her house anxious to open her newly purchased piece, and upon entering through the front door, the viewer also crosses the threshold of her psyche. Her environment suddenly shifts from ecstatic to ominous, and as she navigates through the maze of her interior, her world literally comes crashing down around her. In her subsequent escape, we place her in nature, appearing larger than life, alluding to second chances and what is innately meaningful in our humanness.
Anne-Marie Was Here... 2013 (above 2:13 video clip)
An RPM Project
Multimedia, interactive installation
Inspired by an article written by Anne-Marie Slaughter, “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All”, RPM Project brings to the table the ongoing conversation between women and what they contend with when they juggle their personal and professional lives.
Presented in a domestic setting, a dining table is set with decadent cakes, dishes, teacups, and six dressed chairs with video monitors as talking heads. Each chair represents a woman and her choices, justifications, and dilemmas concerning family and professional life. One chair is left empty for the viewer to sit and participate in this interactive aural collage. An iPad replaces a plate setting so that the guest can leave their own opinion in a virtual community.
Erased In The Wash, 14' x 14' x 3'
2013
By Patricia Schnall Gutierrez
Washing machine hose, brass fittings, audio
In “Erased in the Wash”, the task of doing laundry is once again referenced to as in many other works by the artist; “The Package Project” (2010) “2407- The House Inside My Head” (2011, RPM Project collaborative) and “Inheritance”(2013), and is yet another catharsis of personal memories. Its inspiration was based on a simple but tragic story about one woman’s bedroom encounter that she tries to forget as she launders the sheets, Sounds of whispers, water, and audio abstractions appear to escape from brass fittings as they cascade through the hoses and invite the viewer to “come closer” to listen.
2407 The House Inside My Head, 2011
An RPM Project
Multimedia installation
Folding laundry is a repetitive and constant chore throughout the timeline of our lives. This multimedia installation transforms this domestic ritual from the mundane to the ethereal transforming thoughts that surface during these quiet moments into a meditational trance.
Presented as the iconic white house, plumes of hair burst from the attic vent and find their way to the front door, inviting the viewer to experience this multi-sensory installation, with a seven-segment video, using the ritual of folding laundry as an ethereal expression of the ordinary with layers of consciousness come to the surface in this universal act.
Sleepwalk, 2013
By Patricia Schnall Gutierrez
Video installation
5:13 video loop projected onto a pile of folded sheets
A restless dream of a midlife housewife is unable to find comfort, peace and stillness where she is.