Project supported by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Inc.

KINGSTON, R.I. –November 21, 2007—Newport artist Kim Salerno studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and painting at the School of Art Institute of Chicago. The University of Rhode Island instructor now plans to further fuse art and design, by turning her collages into an installation.

Her work is being supported by a $15,000 grant recently awarded by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Inc. Grants are awarded internationally on the basis of recognizable artistic merit and financial need.

“Visual art is dominated by developments that alter the way people see. Computer design programs use layering systems to isolate visual elements,” said Salerno. “This fragmentary aspect of graphics is to contemporary art what perspective was to the Renaissance. I envision this 2-D infatuation in three dimensions, integrating graphic work with the deep space of Renaissance perspective and the physical experience of contemporary installations.”

Salerno employs domestic images in her collages –combining wallpaper patterns, architecture pieces such as door handles, stairs, lamps, and silhouetted figures. The artist often adds fabric, fake fur, fringe, or tulle.

She plans to develop her collages into an installation composed of large patterned panels and other objects, suspended in space to create an environment in which the viewer can move through an interrupted, layered two-dimensional space sprinkled with some three-dimensional objects.

Salerno expects the completed work will appear to come alive, not as a literal representation of a room, but viewed as a dynamic space that alludes to and reflects the contemporary home environment.

The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Inc. was established in 1985 for the sole purpose of providing financial assistance to individual visual artists through the generosity of the late Lee Krasner, one of the leading abstract expressionist painters and widow of Jackson Pollock.