'X' Intertwining
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Roy Frank Staab (born 1941,
Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...
,
Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, United States) is an American artist.


Early life

Staab was born in
Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...
,
Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, United States on September 9, 1941, the son of Roy William Staab, an artist, painter, and advertising designer. Staab studied painting and graphics at the
Layton School of Art The Layton School of Art was a post-secondary school located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Originally affiliated with the Layton Art Gallery, it was established by Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink in September 1920 in the basement of the buildi ...
and the
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UW–Milwaukee, UWM, or Milwaukee) is a public urban research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is the largest university in the Milwaukee metropolitan area and a member of the University of Wiscon ...
. In the 1970s, he lived in Paris and Germany and traveled throughout Europe. From 1980 to 1993, Staab lived in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. He currently resides in Milwaukee, WI (USA).


Art

Starting as a painter in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Staab's early works combined orderly geometry with disruptive natural forces. His sprayed watercolors explored water's staining properties and its corrupting effects on paper. Later, Staab wiped all color from his palette to focus on highly refined geometric line drawings on paper. In 1979, Staab took his art outdoors. In 1983, he created ''Ocracoke Cartouche'', his first sculptural installation in nature and his first mature work. Using local materials, Staab constructed simple, interlocking geometric forms in the shallows of a tidal enclosure. Like much of his future work, the form of this sculpture floats parallel to the water's surface on vertical supports, allowing the reflection to multiply and complicate the form. The stark geometric drawings of the late 1970s and 1980s foreshadow the rigidly geometric outdoor sculptures. His drawings are now made directly on the earth using reeds, branches and other local materials. Since 1983, he has worked exclusively in and with nature, making ephemeral environmental site installations that incorporate reflections and shadows, shifting light, and changing seasons.Mary Cummings
"The Artist Whose Creations Float Among the Reeds"
''The New York Times'', May 20, 2001
Staab's creations are site-specific and made from local, renewable materials. Bridging land and sky, the scope of the work reflects the artist's arm span, his upward reach, his stride, his size and strength. The artworks devolve back into the landscape—seashore, river, wetland, or forest—after Staab's act of creation in a place is finished. In fact, his work is so vulnerable to wind and waves that sometimes he wonders when he leaves the site at night if it will still be there the next morning. His reed sculptures sometimes last a few months or they may be flattened before completion. One such example of this work is ''X Intertwining'', a public piece formerly located in Riverside Park in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...
, made of stinging nettles woven into ropes. It was constructed in August 2009 and designed to hang directly over a fire pit, over which it deteriorated over the course of three months. Curator Nicholas Frank locates Staab as a second-generation Earthworks artist, and Staab's photographic documentations attest to the site- and time-sensitive environmental works that he has executed in various ecosystems. Staab's ephemeral sculptures are constructed from natural materials such as reeds, willow shoots and bamboo. Others include Spring Ring, a 2002 installation at the Charles Allis Museum, Nature Belle, an
Shadow Dance
commissioned for summer of 2016 at the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum. Staab's creative process at a site includes his own performance, sometimes involving community participation. Staab gathers materials, creates, tends, and photographs his work, and offers direction and interpretation to participants and viewers. Staab's first international show was the 1990 Summer Arts Festival of Jyvaskyla, Finland. Staab has since been invited to create installations in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Denmark, Japan, and Italy.


Residencies, awards, and grants

Staab has been awarded a Wisconsin Visual Art Achievement Award, Milwaukee Arts Board Artist of the Year
Japan/American Artist Exchange Creative Artist Fellowship
residencies at the Sapporo Museum and Yokohama Museum of Art (Japan), a
Pollock-Krasner Foundation The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing financial assistance to individual working artists of established ability. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expressio ...
Grant, Gottlieb Foundation Award, th
Joan Mitchell Award
New York Foundation for the Arts award/Sculpture, New Jersey State Council on the Arts grant, and
New York State Council on the Arts The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) is an arts council serving the U.S. state of New York. It was established in 1960 through a bill introduced in the New York State Legislature by New York State Senator MacNeil Mitchell (1905–1996 ...
grant, among other honors. Staab was a MacDowell Fellow in 1988.


Photography, painting & works on paper

Staab documents each unique artwork, creative experience, and landscape with his own photography and videos. The photographs endure after the ephemeral artworks disappear back into the landscape.Nature Belle by Mary Louis
Schumacher
/ref> Photographs of Staab's work have been featured on the covers of "American Craft" and "Orion" magazines. Staab's paintings, drawings, and photographs can be found in the collections of the Musée d'Art Moderne and Fonds national d'art contemporain in Paris (France),
the Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
in New York City (USA), and the
Milwaukee Art Museum The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is an art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its collection contains nearly 25,000 works of art. Location and Visit Located on the lakefront of Lake Michigan, the Milwaukee Art Museum is one of the largest art museu ...
(USA), Abington Art Center (USA), Boreal Art/Nature (Canada), Yokohama Museum of Art (Japan), Ripon College (USA), University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire (USA), and
Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...
(USA).


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Staab, Roy 1941 births Living people Artists from Milwaukee Sculptors from Wisconsin