Self Portrait (With Mark Perrot) 2000

Curator: Robert Qualters created this mixed-media collage and painting titled "Self Portrait (With Mark Perrot)" in 2000. My first impression is of organized chaos. The frame itself feels like a deliberate extension of the work’s overall frantic energy, with something densely packed fighting for space and attention everywhere the eye lands. Editor: Qualters, a fixture in Pittsburgh’s art scene, made artwork often deeply embedded in the culture of its place and time. We should remember this artwork emerges at the turn of the millennium. Can we examine the social conditions influencing this period that gave way to Neo Expressionism? Also how its use of varied materials and found objects blurs boundaries between artistic production and everyday life. Curator: The expressive portrait sits nestled in what appear to be snippets of text, collage, and frantic mark-making that don't seem immediately legible. Note how acrylic paint and collage coalesce to destabilize form and dissolve our customary standards for an expressive portrait; this is a potent articulation of the period of expressionism from which this originates. Editor: Precisely. Qualters seems concerned with interrogating modes of production and consumption. He’s responding to late-stage capitalism, and it reveals an anxiety in the face of homogenization and corporatization that he addresses through an assemblage of appropriated imagery. How does Qualters reflect his surroundings through integrating mass media imagery into his composition? Curator: It feels rebellious and critical while remaining deeply personal. The choice of certain texts combined with the subject gives the impression of intellectual engagement blended with unfiltered personal expression, and the face conveys something deeper as it's both aged and knowing, like one of intense experience or knowledge. Editor: Consider the accessibility to resources in Qualters’ time. The utilization of material is not just about form; but his own statement on materialism through the social action he executes using the artistic materials around him and a message concerning our surroundings. Curator: Looking at how all this tension coalesces I find something raw but fascinating—it’s really grown on me and I believe more people will feel the same when viewing it here. Editor: Absolutely. Hopefully, we can consider the societal frameworks giving form and power to this composition to grasp this amazing art in Pittsburgh during the dawn of the new millennium.