rchandler

Robin Chandler has been a practicing artist-scholar, educator, and consultant of mixed heritage for 40 years in the U.S. and abroad. Including the U.S. State Department Art in Embassies Touring Program, Chandler has been a resident visiting artist at La Muse (Carcassonne, France), The Bag Factory(Johannesburg)and Thupelo (Cape Town),Pyramid Atlantic papermaking Studios in the U.S.,and at AAMARP in Boston.She has exhibited, published, lectured and workshopped her creative work globally in collage, digital media, and poetry.Since the late 1980’s her work has focused on social and spiritual commentary-themes of peace, freedom, and using art to inspire, stimulate and promote thinking concerning unity and peace-building from local to the global. Crossing disciplines she combines work as a social scientist and artist in lecturing and published works.Her recent articles include “‘However long the night the dawn will come’: Rebuilding a Shattered Art World in the New Liberia”(2013),“Artisans and the Marketing of Ethnicity: Globalization, Indigenous Identity,and Nobility Principles in Micro-Enterprise Development”(2007),and “Colorquest ©A Museum pedagogy on ethnic self-identity representation and cultural histories at the Boston MFA (2008) address her work in international cultural industries. For the last decade she has experimented with multimedia and digital technology to explore studio production and 2 and 3-D projects. As a collage artist, Chandler uses sketches, hand cut ‘drawings’, photographs, digitized images, and handmade papers to construct large-scale traditional and digital collage works.Her technique- “drawing with scissors” uses scissors to cut preliminary sketches freehand, rather than with pencil. She has produced several “series” (7 or 9 works in each series) such as- The Seven Valleys a meditation on spiritual journeying produced in France at La Muse Artist residency in 2009, the Peace Series, a set of nine collages that demonstrated humanity’s evolution in the stages of peace and war, or the Stone Tablets series (2014). The reconstruction of original “handmade” works and digitally generated images stimulates a discovery of new means for expressing color, form, texture, and media and to explore socially relevant ideas. Examples are “Rapid Response” (2001-U-Mass, Amherst), a group exhibition on post “9-11” to a return to ‘series collages’ in “Stone Tablet Series #2-Kenya”(2008, above). Chandler’s themes cover broad global issues of peace making and transcultural heritage and identity. In 2010 her work "Capoeira"was the book cover of 'Women, war, and violence: Personal perspectives and global activism' (Palgrave), a book she also co-edited. Frequently Chandler’s visual works also have accompanying poems to expand the social commentary impact and to highlight issues of identity and include her poem “Siouxjewgermanscotblack (cherokee)” (Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out, Inanna Publications, Inc. 2010).Her major community-based work- The Peace Doors Project- is designed to build and erect nine monumental “peace doors” in nine countries, a process of peace building originally ‘workshopped’in South Africa, Australia, and currently in the U.S. As a sociologist, global consultant on arts and culture policy, Dr. Chandler has advised government ministries, arts organizations, museums, and educational institutions throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico, South Africa, China, Australia, Liberia, Turkey, Uganda, and Brazil. As founding CEO of Caravan for International Culture, her organization promoted teacher training, classroom instruction, and program design in integrated arts education for Grades K-12. Chandler has authored more than 30 publications, was a student Founding Editor of DRUM magazine (UM Amherst,1969-71), and has an extensive exhibition record at more than 200 galleries, museums, banks,universities,and community centers in the U.S. and abroad. Public and private exhibition sites include Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, the Johannesburg Biennale,the Federal Reserve Bank/Boston, the National Museum of the American Indian /Smithsonian Institution,the Noho Gallery/NYC, Casa el Cuento y la Historia Cayeyana/Municipo Cayey/Puerto Rico, Bartel Arts Trust/Durban, the Lois Mailou Jones Studio Gallery/Martha’s Vineyard, Cinque Gallery/NYC, Mills Gallery/Boston Center for the Arts,Copley Society Gallery/Boston, and online galleries and was formerly represented by the Isobel Neal Gallery in Chicago. The artists’ work is represented in public and private collections including Nynex Corporation (now Verizon),the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, and private collectors in India, Lebanon, South Africa, Australia, and the US.She is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment foe the Arts,Pyramid Atlantic ,the CIES Fulbright Programs,and the National Science Foundation. She is currently tenured faculty,Department of Cultures, Societies,and Global Studies,Northeastern University.