Atlanta artist explores the psychological tension between humans and nature

Her current exhibition, “INSTAR,” on view at Sandler Hudson Gallery through Aug. 1, features a selection of abstracted compositions on copper and paper alongside a series of micro collages. At the gallery’s front desk, magnifying glasses are available to anyone who wants to take a closer look at the works on the walls.

Credit: Photo by Isadora Pennington

Credit: Photo by Isadora Pennington

“INSTAR” refers to one of the five stages of metamorphosis in a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly, according to the gallery. Here, it’s intended as a metaphor for transformation and evolution.

A deep and lasting love for the environment has long been at the heart of Longobardi’s artistic practice. She grew up in proximity to the beach in New Jersey, the daughter of parents who met when her dad, an ocean lifeguard during summer college breaks, became a coach for her mom, a Delaware diving and swimming champion. The setting and family’s connection to the water provided Pam a unique perspective on the power and majesty of our planet’s oceans. Witnessing plastic waste that washed up on ocean shores around the world inspired her to consider humanity’s impact on the planet through discarded items and became central to her art activism.

The breadth of Longobardi’s artistic career spans mediums including photography, sculpture, assemblage, collage, painting and alternative processes and is united by a shared concern for the planet’s well-being. She considers the role of humans in nature and conveys that relationship through additive processes of layered paper, sculptural compositions of found objects and the interactions of paints and corrosive liquids.

Longobardi’s father was a biochemist who worked for Union Carbide Corp., and she said that seeing him involved with some of the earliest developments of plastic products sparked her curiosity. When he brought home experiments and demonstrated them on her kitchen counter, young Pam was fascinated by the process.

“I ended up getting a degree in science because, for me, it’s like art and science are two sides of the same coin or maybe two halves of the brain.”

Credit: Photo by Isadora Pennington

Credit: Photo by Isadora Pennington

To follow his dreams, Longobardi’s father moved the family to Atlanta to start a new business, albeit short-lived. Her father then held a series of interesting jobs and had hobbies, becoming a stockbroker, a hang glider pilot and even opening his own rock climbing school in 1960.

“He was a dreamer,” she said. “He was like, intrepid, you know? Nothing ever got in his way.”

After graduating with a bachelor of fine arts from the University of Georgia, Longobardi headed out West, where she earned her master of fine arts at Montana State University.

During this phase of her life, she was married to a cowboy and lived on a sprawling ranch, but she felt a consistent, deep yearning to get back to science. “It was really isolating,” she said of the experience, “but it was kind of cool, too.”

In the next phase of her life, Longobardi worked in experimental printmaking in San Francisco before heading back to the Southeast and landing a teaching job at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. “Appalachia wasn’t my thing,” she said. “I landed an interview at GSU and ended up moving down.”

Credit: Photo by Isadora Pennington

Credit: Photo by Isadora Pennington

As a professor, she found a home at Georgia State University. “I love the people, I love the students. That’s why I’ve stayed there so long, you know,” she said. “It couldn’t be better, really. My colleagues are fantastic.”

Looking around at the works on view in “INSTAR,” Longobardi said that she considers herself a conceptual artist who is “deeply embedded in materials and materiality.” Her fascination with chemistry is perhaps most evident in her copper pieces. The compositions are organically born through a series of chemical reactions, the majority producing varied patinas.

“It’s like wild nature, uncontrolled,” said Longobardi of the practice, noting that she enjoys using materials that are industrial and not intended for fine art alongside traditional art materials to create these works. “It’s sort of like the idea of paving over paradise, because once I put those down, I can never go back to what it was before.”

From the impulsive, experimental approach to those first chemical reactions to the later, more thoughtful additions of tiny figures and miniature trees, the process represents a kind of collision of both forces and ideas.

“In the beginning, I really strove for this one world where nature was untouched, and then as humans have developed in my lifetime, we were just coming in and almost overriding. So there’s this collision now.”

Though experienced in making realistic paintings in oils, these days Longobardi finds no motivation to work in slow realism and instead prefers expressive art composed in a more rapid and frenetic way. “Right now, I’m not interested in doing that; I don’t feel like I have the time. I feel like there’s an urgency to do these things,” she said of the works in “INSTAR.”

Credit: Photo by Isadora Pennington

Credit: Photo by Isadora Pennington

Though the small scale and careful control evident in Longobardi’s pieces created from devalued and defunct currency is in distinct contrast to the large, loose, paper-based and copper pieces in “INSTAR,” they represent another exploration of value through art. She enjoys collecting obsolete currency from other countries, and then cutting it up and carefully layering it into miniature vistas.

“I consider it like a found encyclopedia of value,” she said, noting that the imagery on money from various countries can indicate the values of their origins. Some feature nature, animals and landscapes, while others might have figures, buildings and other symbolism.

By cutting up the currency and assembling it into new compositions, Longobardi is playing with their value. Once cut, the money can no longer be used for its intended purpose. But after being reconfigured as fine art, the works take on an altogether new value on the walls of a gallery.

Ultimately, the pieces on display in “INSTAR” can be viewed as a continuation of the ideas Longobardi has been exploring through other media, including sculptural reclaimed plastic works featured in last year’s Atlanta Art Fair as part of her Drifters Project. It’s a conversation that is not finished yet — and may never be — regarding humanity’s impact on the environment as seen through industrial chemical reactions and the inevitable waste that accompanies those developments.

EXHIBIT PREVIEW

Pam Longobardi: “INSTAR”

Through Aug. 1 at Sandler Hudson Gallery. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, noon-5 p.m. Saturdays. 739 Trabert Ave. NW, Suite B, Atlanta. 404-817-3300, sandlerhudson.com.

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Isadora Pennington is senior editor of art + design and dance. An experienced writer and photographer with a deep love for the arts, Isadora founded the Sketchbook newsletter with Rough Draft Atlanta in 2022. She is also president of the Avondale Arts Alliance and director of the Avondale Arts Center.

Credit: ArtsATL

Credit: ArtsATL

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