Publication Date
11-21-2009
Document Type
Interview
Duration
34 minutes
Subjects
Trash art, Art works, Sustainability -- Oregon -- Portland
Abstract
Interview of Robert Dozono by Greg Plath at Blackfish Gallery in Portland, Oregon on November 21st, 2009.
The interview index is available for download.
Biographical
The natural environment is important to Robert Dozono, a Portland area artist known for his reuse and repurposing of objects in his work. He is a member of Blackfish Gallery, and the former Art Department Chair at Portland Community College (30 years) where he taught painting and drawing. Born in Okayama, Japan, he earned a BS in Fine Arts from the University of Oregon, and an MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.
Rights
This digital access copy is made available as streaming media for personal, educational, and non-commercial use within the parameters of “fair use” as defined under U.S. Copyright law. It cannot be reproduced, distributed, or broadcasted for commercial purposes. For more information, please contact Special Collections at Portland State University Library at: specialcollections@pdx.edu or (503) 725-9883.
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/10725
Recommended Citation
Plath, Greg, "Interview with Robert Dozono, 2009 (audio)" (2009). Sustainability History Project. http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/10725
Description
Robert Donozo is the interviewee, recorded by Greg Plath on November 21 2009. Robert is a member of Blackfish Gallery, that exhibits artist’s work originated and created by regional and local artists, rather than other museums that display artists work from New York, Chicago, and Paris for example. The gallery is tied to the community by their choices of members of the Blackfish Gallery being local artists. Robert has lived in Portland about 55 years in 2009, and he incorporates his life experiences about sustainability into his art work. He grew up during the occupation of Japan in the forties by the U.S., as his father was a farmer in Japan, and his mother was from Portland. He talks of the DDT that was massively incorporated into the farm fields, and ruining the fresh river water. Robert is a world traveller and he reflects on his reusing of his personal garbage into his art work, as a way to impress the importance of using fewer materials on a personal level as a path for sustainability. His art work is mainly displayed in public areas like hospitals or libraries in mural form, and he has been commissioned by Clackamas County previously to make a Clackamas River Mural at a public park. Children seem to appreciate his work the most, as they can find hidden pieces within the mural that was once a piece of garbage. His themes in his paintings and murals are rivers and his children.
This interview is part of “The Sustainability History Project: Documenting Sustainable Development and Practice in the Pacific Northwest” at Portland State University.