RHONDA URDANG (nee Thomas) has been making and exhibiting her art since 1970. She has had a varied and interesting career; she has worked as a typesetter, museum gallery attendant, apprentice dot etcher, and journeyman color separation artist on high-fashion catalogs in the graphic arts industry in Omaha and in Phoenix. She was a re-toucher for Anne Klein, Ann Taylor, Bergdorf Goodman, Bonwit Teller, Estee Lauder and Neiman Marcus. Since leaving academia, the patriarchy and pseudoscience behind (some things are folktales and misbelief), her ingenuity has flourished. Rhonda is interested in making contemporary art that challenges the narrative.
The Feminist Art movement has argued that re-appropriation and re-signification is a crosscultural process by which disregarded or oppressed individuals can reclaim artifacts or images that were previously used in a disparaging manner and uplift them in a way that brings about socio-political empowerment for under-represented womyn. She stays true to her instincts and is always authentic. Since founding Flagstaff Feminist Art Studio, she has worked in multi disciplines including femmage, assemblage, book art, collage, digital manipulation, painting, film and satire. Her thought-provoking works had been exhibited widely in regional, national, and international shows in 40 states.
Rarely does she commit to one style – choosing rather to let her keen intuitive perception and vivid imagination guide her from one theme to the next – shedding light on the transcendent tendencies that emerge in her visionary images. Listening to her unconscious mind continues to be a great source of inspiration. Rhonda gains visual pleasure from unraveling the feminine mystique while peeling away layers of buried eidetic memory in her innovative art practice — nestled in the fertile landscape of Northern Arizona. Human, civil, and workers’ rights have been important social issues for her since and early age. More recently, she’s been exploring racial dynamics in modern and contemporary American life. Her experimental approach has earned numerous awards
