Sun Salutations, ©2007
Sun Valley Health Center, Sun Valley, CA
Byzantine glass, hand-painted ceramic tile, and photo-transferred porcelain tile
Exterior mosaic 72″H x 120″W Hand-painted ceramic tile
Fabricators: Mosaika Art & Design, Canada
The Sun was chosen as the primary metaphor for this project since the word “sun” is part of Sun Valley’s name, and because it is an image of regeneration, warmth and healing. The artist wanted the people entering this facility, and sitting in its waiting room, to immediately feel this “warmth”. All of the works in this project began as photomontage designs and were translated into Byzantine glass, hand-painted ceramic tile, photo-transferred porcelain tile and translucent colored-glass windows.
A 72″ x 120″ ceramic mural on the exterior wall above the entryway of the health facility shows a girl and boy, made of photo-transfer tile, within an altered 17th Century manuscript by Trismosin. The boy looks out toward a better future, while the girl collects medicinal herbs for healing.
There are two large mosaics, 50″ x 50″ and 50″ x 60″ on the two larger curved walls of the waiting room, and a smaller mosaic, 18″ x 18″ in the middle of the soffit trim that surrounds the reception area.
The two large mosaics combine images of contemporary people, within art historical landscapes, where the sun is the central element. In the smaller of the two large mosaics, an image of a little boy is shown hanging from a sun, excerpted from a landscape by Vincent Van Gogh. In the larger, an image of two women and two children is depicted walking toward the sun (healing) through an altered 17th Century engraving by Matthus Merian. In the smallest mosaic, above the reception area, a boy and girl are depicted playing inside the cosmic gateway to Eternity taken from a painting, strongly influenced by the South American Mayan culture, by Thaedra MabraKhan.
Within the rotunda-shaped waiting room of the building, there is an 18″H decorative trim, which appears dimensional, of hand-painted ceramic tile, encircling all of its curved walls, including the upper soffit of the reception area.
Selected translucent panels of colored laminated glass are installed in the thirteen 2’x 2′ windows in the upper walls of the rotunda, which echo the colors of the mosaics and trim below, and cast their colors on the indented walls surrounding them.
“Though her art uses the techniques of collage and the aesthetics of photography, Braunstein considers herself neither a collagist nor a photographer. But while Braunstein always uses found images, never using the camera to create images, her art is in fact more closely related to photography than to collage, particularly to aspects of darkroom photography in her manipulating, clarifying, extracting, combining, and reproducing existing images. Her sole use of the camera is mechanical, to reproduce her collaged images so that in their final material form her words may appear to be authentic photo documentation rather than pieced paper constructions. She exploits the appearance of photography to deny the fact of her paper collages and in order to simulate documentary “reality.” Braunstein thus uses the camera for one of its oldest and original purposes: to fictionalize, much as such pioneering photographers as Oscar G Rejlander (1813-1875), Henry Peach Robinson (1830-1901 or the cinematographer Georges Méliès (1861-1938) created images that never existed except in their art.”
“In addition to the photo collages or montages, Braunstein also creates books. The books have a far more hand-wrought quality, and are put into the world more as objects — as things — than as images of other things. But there are close similarities of concept and techniques with the photographs. As always, Braunstein utilizes existing sources — other books — to create her own books. She combines images extracted from her usual sources of magazines, books and printed matter, with illustrations or text pages from bound volumes such as children’s storybooks or scientific manuals. Some of her books “read” like normal books — that is, from one page to the next, in a sequence from first to last, and often there is a visual, if not always logical, narrative. But other of her books are sculptural with holes, windows and other contours cut through the pages, so that in turning from page to page, new information accumulates layer upon layer; these books are read not only from one page to another, but from one page through another. In the hands of the reader, one of Braunstein’s sculptural books becomes a kinetic sculpture whose visual and intelligible content changes with each turn of the page.”
“The magic of Terry’s work is that she has given new meaning and unexpected context to a common symbol we all recognize. The combination of the grand scale and the intimate, often nostalgic images act to draw visitors to the site and invite interaction. Rarely, in public art projects, is the resolution of formal issues so beautifully married with the subject matter, which, for so many, is the heart of the memorial. Happily, Terry’s sculpture is an object of extraordinary beauty that succeeds on all levels and for all ages.”
“There are as many definitions of “art” as there are expressions of it. If art is defined as a visual philosophy of life or a search for meaning, Terry Braunstein creates it. Whether expressed as a poignant view of human behavior, a nostalgic perception of things past, an honest look at life and loss, the wisdom learned from collective experience, desperate longing for love and desire, or anxious hope for the future, Braunstein’s art explores it all. Working in a variety of media that includes . . . . installations. . . she creates work that stimulates the mind and the heart on myriad levels.
“To create a picture in the way that Terry Braunstein does is, in essence, to reassemble pieces of our familiar world into a surprising, yet convincing, new world. . . . There are no ready answers to the questions Braunstein poses, and no promise of a resolution forthcoming. In fact, there seem only to be more questions, and more cross-references. By importing the loaded content of mass media imagery into her artistic landscape, she not only challenges the assumptions implicit in contemporary culture but also addresses one of the basic aesthetic dilemmas: the interpretive gap between appearance and truth.”