Rodman White House is the collaboration of Mindy Rodman and Paul White. Together we create whimsical, polychromatic sculpture , sculptural furniture and furnishings, as well as abstract and abstract figurative acrylic paintings.
Rodman White House is the collaboration of Mindy Rodman and
Paul White. Together we create whimsical, polychromatic sculpture , sculptural
furniture and furnishings, as well as abstract and abstract figurative acrylic
paintings.
We met while studying cinematography at City College of San Francisco in the late 1970's. Our marriage and creative partnership began in 1980, when we embarked on a decade of making short films and videos together, while each worked professionally within the motion picture industry.
In 1992 , we wanted to reach people without the need for a darkened room, and to create a body of work that was both tangible and accessible. Still wishing to have our artwork inspire people to see the world in a new way and to think outside the box, we took to making sculptural art furniture and furnishings, out of wood, metal and other mixed media. Cabinets fit together like lockets, while bending and swaying in a dance of life, simultaneously illustrating our individual uniqueness as well as our interdependence on each other as a community.
By the new millennium we had taught ourselves to weld and were concentrating mainly on outdoor sculptures made of steel. Working in steel allows us to better illustrate both the fragility and strength of the human condition, which has always been a central theme in our work. Our pieces either incorporate bright, bold colors, to delight and uplift the spirit, or include large expanses of stainless steel that have been burnished in a way that interacts with the light. In doing so, we create the effect of rhythm and motion, as well as depth, allowing viewers to look into the soul of a piece.
Our latest endeavor finds us painting on canvas, some of which also incorporates a metal component, for a dimensional dynamic. Although our mediums have evolved over the years, the focus on humor, motion (or the illusion thereof) and story telling, has remained constant. We feel that our cinematic background, combined with our love of music and dance, accounts for the strong visual rhythms and theatrical elements of our work. We love to travel and explore other cultures, and attribute this influence as well, to the anthropomorphic nature of our pieces. While we work in both abstract and figurative styles, all of our work incorporates an element of humor to forge a human connection.
Mindy was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York; Paul comes from Kewanee, a small town in Illinois. Together we have lived in San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles and Santa Rosa, in Northern California's wine country. Since 1996 we have lived in Oakland, California. For 16 years we lived in a large live/work warehouse with other artists in East Oakland, and in 2012 we bought our own live/work studio in a much smaller artist's complex in West Oakland, where our studio/showroom is open to the public by appointment.