FOCUS: NEW POP AND THE EFFECTS OF POPULAR CULTURE

RADAU'S artistic experiments consistently begin with a "Why?" or a "How?" ... the primary focus on the effects of objects on the human condition and existence. Quite often the cause is a popular brand and the same is readily mixed with vehicles such as the female form to examine the effects. A resulting derivative is the examination of the process of consumption and the depiction of excessive indulgence, with the iconization of images in the Pop technique also resulting from time to time. Nearly all works are approached as trials in this manner ... all are the product of multi-faceted interpretation. Her goal is to examine Pop from an alternative perspective - from the outside in, as opposed to the inside out - and expose what lies beneath the surface of the same.

The style itself is a combination of traditional Pop elements and the techniques of Art Nouveau. Melted chalk pastels are the primary medium. Unlike prior Pop presentations, her works are hand-crafted and unrepeatable; borrowed two-dimensional images are painted by hand; colors are heavily mixed with their fluidity bound by hard edges; and hand-templates are consistently used to vary identical images instead of repeat them. At variance to prior methods, her efforts promote the creation of Pop without removal of the artist's hand.

Murals are the principal means by which her efforts and ideas are conveyed as they provide the means to connect cause and effect and afford the space to explore subjects fully due to their large scale. With no formal artistic training, her efforts are the result of an intriguing combination: malcontentedness and curiosity. Better said, they are the product of influences ... they represent a quest for knowledge.