Bobi Lee Bosson
Artist: Bobi Lee Bosson
Media: Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture
Website: https://bobi-lee.com/work
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbieleeboss/
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user60067785
Email: barbieleeboss@yahoo.com
Bobi Lee Bosson is a multi-disciplinary artist who is inspired by everyday life. Bobi uses various methods, mediums, and techniques to portray her ideas, messages, reactions, and thoughts through her art, such as painting, printmaking, and sculpturing. She started off painting at first, but eventually dove into other mediums, such as printmaking, and the print media of her choice is screen printing. Her works explore various ideas, such as community and love from “Let Love In”, which she was inspired to make from participating in the gay pride parade/resist march. More of her interests that she is drawn to is shown in her works, which includes the female form, drag queens, environment, and entomology.
Bobi is a multi-disciplinary artist who bridges various mediums together to create art. Various of her artworks show that she is drawn to the female body, such as “Jules”, an oil painting on canvas, “Rosie”, a sculpture made of welded steel and monofilament cord, “Cat Lady”, made of bronze, and “Come At Me Bro”, a ceramic screen print. Through these works, she accentuates the female form through the use of curves, whether curves are drawn, painted, or sculpted. Various of her works as well shows use of a rainbow of colors, such as “Let Love In” in screenprint, “Self Portrait”, a monoprint, “Virago Barbie”, an installation, and “Monarch”, which was a mix of oil on canvas, marine debris, cellophane, wire, and screen print. Her use of colors, such as using primary colors and mixing them to create new colors, and the cohesive mix of them, vividly makes her artwork stand out. Additionally, the styles of her artwork varies as well, such as her “Roxanne” oil on canvas, which is more abstract, compared to her drag series, such as “Bebe”, “Ryan”, and “Bretty Fabs”, which were portraits made from oil on canvas, which were more realistic. Lastly, the scale of her artworks fall on a great range as she has some artworks that are as small as 4’’ X 3’’ X 1.5’’, which is “CCD”, made of bronze and mussel shells, to 13’’ X 19’’, which is a screenprint called “Mini Wiconi”, to her “Virago Barbie” installation, which people were able to step into, and to her “Tide Conditions”project, which was humongous as it is taller than a building.
Through her presentation, Bobi reveals to us that she is inspired by everything from daily life. Various of her artworks show what she is drawn to, such as the female form in “Rosie”, “Come At Me Bro”, and “Cat Lady”, to the drag queen scene, such as her drag series consisting of “Bebe”, “Ryan”, and “Bretty Fabs”, and to her dabbling into environment and entomology, such as “Monarch”, “Nursery Web”, and “Tide Conditions”. She is also inspired from current world events, such as her “Angelitos” screenprint based on the massive earthquake in Puebla, Mexico, to the gay pride parade/resist march, which fueled her into making “Let Love In”. From that, she found her calling, and expressed how her artworks are her own reactions of social and political commentaries to what is going on in the world. Another example would be her “Tide Conditions” collaboration project as they made an artwork consisting of various collected objects, such as marine debris, single use plastic, steel, wood pallet, and reclaimed clay, as they used this to show how much pollution and trash there are in this world. Additionally, Bobi reveals to us that when inspiration strikes, she plans out her work before diving into it, such as “Rosie”, the steel sculpture, as she had to sketch and make mock-ups of. She even showed her notebook where she’s constantly documenting what she hears, reads, and thinks of. However, not all her pieces were planned out first, such as “Monarch”, which was direct and emotional. Overall, Bobi simply just creates art on whatever she wants to as she creates art based on her interests and what she finds compelling, and she loves to experiment, mix, and bridge different mediums and techniques together in order to show to the world her ideas, reactions, and emotions on social, political, and world events and issues.
Truthfully, although I was raised in a more conservative household and many of my views in life might not align, I was amazed by how much I could resonate with Bobi’s works. One of her artworks that really stuck out to me included her screenprint called “Angelitos”. This tribute to the massive earthquake in Puebla, Mexico struck emotions in me as the screenprint had the chalky feel to it and looked as if it was drawn by a child, which made more of an impact to the sad truth. Another one of her artwork that stuck out to me was “Virago Barbie”, which got me thinking about the way society works, pertaining to the glass ceiling, double standards, and stereotypes. Also, a little side note, I thought it was cool how it was unintentional as she didn’t place a layer of plastic covering the opening, which allowed people to step inside the box! Lastly, another one of her artworks that resonates with me is “Tide Conditions”, which was made from collecting marine debris, single use plastic, steel, wood pallet, and reclaimed clay. I thought it was thoughtful and impactful that they chose to reuse these materials to create this artwork and that this is a message that needs to be spread throughout the world to stop pollution, prevent excess of non-degradable waste, and save our planet. Bobi is an amazingly talented artist who shows herself — her ideas, beliefs, interest, reactions, thoughts, and emotions — across all her artworks through her out-of-the-box skills and techniques with mixes of various mediums.
