The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has recently announced the latest members of their 2014 annual fellowship grant and John Dombroski has been fortunate enough to be included this year on a professional level.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has recently announced the latest members of their 2014 annual fellowship grant and John Dombroski has been fortunate enough to be included this year on a professional level.
Originally a student at Virginia Commonwealth University, Dombroski now teaches at VCU but doesn’t necessarily let his academic career dictate his art.
Over the past few years he has received numerous awards and honors, including a VMFA Undergraduate Fellowship in 2011, and residencies with local organizations the Billboard Art Project and Artworks, both in 2012. Most of his work avoids traditional classification as he draws inspiration from his personal life experiences, sound, and existence within space.
Although Dombroski’s current endeavors find him in Richmond, he has lived in Washington D.C. and spent some of his youth growing up in rural United Kingdom. While in the U.K. countryside he attended a choir school and was able to experience nature. “I’ve learned in lots of moments of solitude in the U.K.,“ he said.
Certainly growing up in the U.K. gave Dombroski a different perspective than growing up in a typical American environment. In talking with Dombroski, it was clear his past was somewhat of an influence on how he perceives his world and his perspective of art. His work involves space, but doesn’t seem to embody any specific location. “I didn’t grow up in any one place,” he said. “Maybe my work reflects that.”
What his work does reflect is his creative use of pre-existing materials and space to create meaning. One of his installations, entitled TIME, connects two different spaces with sound. In one space there is a guitar set up, along with a clock, and a fan blowing clippings of Time Magazine against the guitar. An audio cable then runs from the first space to the next. In the second space, an amp emits the sounds generated by the guitar in the first space.
However, not all of his work is so involved. His piece mirror underwater in the sun is exactly what it sounds like. He films a mirror reflecting sunlight, just under the surface of moving water. It’s a very simple yet creative concept that yields an unexpected and beautiful effect.
Dombroski had a lot to say when asked about his personal creative process. “I don’t start from nothing to something,” he said. “I draw upon spaces and experiences that I want to try to replicate, or on the preexisting quality of objects that are already here.” He takes a laid-back attitude towards his work, saying, “I don’t think its necessary to stress so much about whether something is going to work or not. If you’re being honest with yourself…it’ll work out.”
Part of what makes John Dombroski’s work unique is that it doesn’t conform to any particular medium. His work may be hard to classify but he believes it’s difficult to classify a lot of new artwork. “Old Classifications” and mediums of art might not apply to everything that’s happening now. However Dombroski also believes classification isn’t always necessary and says, “People are making work with whatever they have at hand.”
The VMFA has classified his work as “New and emerging media,” but Dombroski claims his work might be more accurately described as “sound.” He believes that sound is becoming a more widely accepted medium for art other than just music. “It definitely has to do with the Internet,” he said. It has caused an increase in the availability of experimental sound works that may have been previously difficult to obtain.
Some of Dombroski’s work relies on audience interaction. He is curious about the relationships between the artist, audience and the art itself. “I definitely consider my audience when I’m making things, but I don’t start with the audience in mind,“ he said.
One of Dombroski’s more recent projects, titled Touch, lets the audience be a part of the art. In Touch, Dombroski attaches contact microphones, amps, and audio effects to a preexisting sculpture by Diane Bauer. People interact with the sculpture by touching, tapping and making contact with the sculpture to create sound, and are therefore able to have their own unique experience with the piece.
In his piece Noise Variation(s), audio speakers are suspended in a room in a grid like pattern. Each speaker emits it’s own ambient field recording as the audience wanders the room. Both of these pieces illustrate how Dombroski’s work involves and audience without necessarily being about the audience.
Dombroski says he doesn’t have any particular plans for the near future other than traveling. He says, “The world is totally open right now and the VMFA has definitely facilitated that.” To see more of his art check out his official website.
