Marsha Nouritza Odabashian
59 Wareham Street
I draw, paint and collage with onionskin dye, acrylic paint and other mixed media materials. My work is motivated by my Armenian American ancestral background, human rights issues, feminism and climate change. I explore paradoxes such as abundance/loss, power/ fragility and permanence/impermanence. Frequent themes include migration, genocide and collective memory. I am influenced by history, art history, Armenian medieval manuscripts and architecture, international folk tales and fairy tales.
Often, I am asked: Why onionskins? My earliest experiences with painting involved my mother using onionskins to dye Easter Eggs. I was always fascinated that white or brown eggs thrown into a pot and boiled with yellow onionskins would emerge in variations of red. I was haunted by the history of the tradition and the ritual. It is a way to absorb my Armenian heritage into my art.
The process begins with boiling a large pot of onionskins, which disintegrate into solids and liquid colored red, red-orange and maroon. I throw, drop, drip and pour the mixture onto canvas, paper and/or compressed cellulose sponge until the onionskins cover and absorb into the substrate. Sometimes I leave them outside through wind, rain and snow. Some of the onionskins fall off while drying leaving a stain and some of the skins stick. Each result is a unique miasma of dried skins and/or residue of layered textures, shapes and stains into which I incorporate imagery. Every stain is a universe of varying degrees of reality and wonder from which I then coax, cajole and tease into plants, animals, anthropomorphic, hybrid, historical and futuristic beings Indefinable landscape/ interior settings merge and contradict one another harboring hints of secret narratives. These characters are similar in color and texture as the backgrounds and are inseparable from the earth toned landscape which they inhabit to purposefully defy displacement, while others migrate into the unknown.
I exploit size and scale to invoke uncertainty, absurdity and humor. Vignettes of characters placed in isolation or in clusters are often disjointed in relationship to history and location. The onionskins and stains are a means or tool to create imagery and stir imagination.
