Rod Faulds Art Works, Photo-based and Otherwise
Biography
Rod Faulds is a former museum professional and educator. As an undergraduate he studied photography and printmaking. He holds an MA in Exhibition Design and a Certificate in Museum Studies from California State University, Fullerton. Faulds held design and administrative positions at The Brooklyn Museum, the Guggenheim and Williams College Museum of Art prior to being Director, University Galleries at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton from 1997 – 2021.
Beginning in 2009 after a 30-year hiatus from art making Faulds began to employ digital photography to create several series of abstract works caught somewhere between photography and painting. Faulds career as a curator, exhibition designer/producer has provided a strong critical approach to his image making that has since branched into collage and assemblage using collected discarded materials, objects and images.
In his first solo exhibition – 2014, Hollywood Art & Culture Center (Florida) – he installed one wall, asymmetrically cheek to jowl, with six 2 x 2 ft Surf Work digital collages that were mounted on unconventional support materials like rough plywood and “peg board.” For most exhibitions since, working site specifically has played a important role as Faulds has created several exhibition presentations where his images and other collected materials are combined into an overall installation.
While the image making continues through camera and computer, a studio practice has emerged that combines image/object making and planning/fabrication for installations employing a wide range of collected objects many related to waste produced by the artist – coffee grounds and used paper coffee cups, lint, hair – as well as more anonymous discarded objects, like plastics, bulletin boards, and maps among others.
Faulds’ first solo exhibition was presented in 2014 at Hollywood Art & Culture Center (Florida). Both of his subsequent solo exhibitions, Hybrid Detritus at Miami Dade College, Padron Campus (2022) and AMALGAM at Palm Beach State College, Lake Worth (2025) were site-specific installations featuring photo- and object-based works. A collaboration with sculptor Tom Scicluna and dancer Letty Bassart, Surplus Reiterations filled two large galleries at University Galleries, Florida Atlantic University with objects discarded by the University, (2022). Faulds has been featured in many group exhibitions including: 2025 Palm Beach County Biennial, Cultural Council of Palm Beach County curated by L.A. gallerist, Timothy Hawkinson; Imagined Places, Inhabited Spaces, (wall installation); four person exhibition, Eastern Connecticut State University Art Gallery, (2022), Julia Wintner, curator; Polyopia, (installation); Giannina Dwin, curator; Arts Warehouse, Delray Beach;
Artist Statement
Initially my photo-based art works blended hundreds of photographic images into gridded abstract patterns of light and color from the built landscape. More recently fewer images are combined, collaged and montaged to create bolder images that conflate figuration and geometric abstraction, a variety of Surrealism I suppose. Creating gritty or confounding abstractions from overlooked construction sites or other unnoticed bits of the world – the under belly, unnoticed infrastructure of things - drives me more than employing photographs and objects to narrate, depict or deceive. In both the photo- and object-based works I am committed to abstraction as a rigorous way to structure image making and to suggest alternative or other worlds beyond our pragmatic experience.
Finally, while I cannot claim that I am an environmental activist, my work purposely and poetically questions the world’s climate crisis. I am motivated by questions regarding human cycles of consumption, discard and trash management, and the slowness of our world’s government and corporate leaders to respond appropriately to our man-made environmental catastrophe(s).
• Following is a link to a video of Faulds' 2020 Artist Presentation for Art Salon, a series of artist talks produced by Ellie Schorr in association with the Armory Art Center, West Palm Beach.
https://southfloridaartsalons.com/salon-presentationsgA.php?152
• Following is a link to a Studio Interview Video filmed in 2023 for an episode of Artists Connecting South Florida created by Etheard Joseph.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI49NHdnj7E
• Rod Faulds exhibition design and curatorial work website:
