Material Reality in a Digital World
One accepted definition of the objet trouvé is any raw material that is used in a work of art in such a way that it calls attention to its real material qualities and inherent aesthetic value. Here you will find an archive of art and artists working with objets trouvé, discarded items, readymades, trash/garbage, and other ephemera. Their techniques and methods of production include collage, assemblage, bricolage, installation, sculpture, photography, and more.
© All images appearing on this page are the exclusive property of the individual artists, and may not be reproduced, copied, transmitted or manipulated without the written permission of each artist.
© All images appearing on this page are the exclusive property of the individual artists, and may not be reproduced, copied, transmitted or manipulated without the written permission of each artist.
Caroline Cockrell
Durham, NC-based Photographer
Caroline's current photographic work captures bold abstract images by focusing on bright colors and unusual patterns. However, her inspiration is ordinary subjects that would generally be considered unpleasant to the naked eye: rusting dumpsters, peeling trucks, aging store doors, crumbling walls. She composes her photographs to transform the "unpleasant" into something aesthetically pleasing and eye-catching. Through her lens, the vibrant colors of these objects take on the appearance of an abstract painting. Through Caroline's photographic eye, mundane objects become extraordinary.
Caroline Cockrell is a Durham, NC native who has lived in Raleigh for the last 10 years, but has recently moved back to Durham. She is rarely without her camera. Photography has always been Caroline’s way of capturing the beauty she finds in ordinary and unexpected places.
carolinedcphotos.com carolinecockrellphotography.tumblr.com
Durham, NC-based Photographer
Caroline's current photographic work captures bold abstract images by focusing on bright colors and unusual patterns. However, her inspiration is ordinary subjects that would generally be considered unpleasant to the naked eye: rusting dumpsters, peeling trucks, aging store doors, crumbling walls. She composes her photographs to transform the "unpleasant" into something aesthetically pleasing and eye-catching. Through her lens, the vibrant colors of these objects take on the appearance of an abstract painting. Through Caroline's photographic eye, mundane objects become extraordinary.
Caroline Cockrell is a Durham, NC native who has lived in Raleigh for the last 10 years, but has recently moved back to Durham. She is rarely without her camera. Photography has always been Caroline’s way of capturing the beauty she finds in ordinary and unexpected places.
carolinedcphotos.com carolinecockrellphotography.tumblr.com
Alexandra Davis
Binghamton, NY-based artist (Fine Art & Design, Printmaking, Mixed Media, Drawing)
In my mixed media works I reconstruct decomposing objects that are man-made and found in nature. Reflecting back to the wood and land, the discarded book becomes the matrix for these collages using additive and subtractive methods in printmaking. The natural found objects often in decay are collaged with the annotations left behind as a memory or the exhale of breath and a last attempt at the recognition of existence.
alexandradavis.net
Binghamton, NY-based artist (Fine Art & Design, Printmaking, Mixed Media, Drawing)
In my mixed media works I reconstruct decomposing objects that are man-made and found in nature. Reflecting back to the wood and land, the discarded book becomes the matrix for these collages using additive and subtractive methods in printmaking. The natural found objects often in decay are collaged with the annotations left behind as a memory or the exhale of breath and a last attempt at the recognition of existence.
alexandradavis.net
Gabriel Dishaw
Upcycled Creations
My passion for working with metal and mechanical objects has been essential in the evolution of my art. It provides me an avenue to express myself in a way that brings new life to materials such as typewriters, adding machines and old computers – technology that would normally end up in a landfill. My mission is to create dialogue and help find creative, environmentally sound ways of re-purposing e-waste.
gabrieldishaw.com
Upcycled Creations
My passion for working with metal and mechanical objects has been essential in the evolution of my art. It provides me an avenue to express myself in a way that brings new life to materials such as typewriters, adding machines and old computers – technology that would normally end up in a landfill. My mission is to create dialogue and help find creative, environmentally sound ways of re-purposing e-waste.
gabrieldishaw.com
Laura Glenn
Ithaca, NY-based poet and visual artist
The first three drawings address childhood, memory, and loss. The Dig shows found objects from our yard (a poem of the same title is available by navigating the interactive map above). Digging a garden turned into a kind of archaeological dig, in which lost trinkets and small toys were unearthed. Turnover is a drawing I made of a couple of curios from the house I grew up in; afterward, I digitally reversed the black and white, and added sepia tones. Untitled Drawing considers the passage of time, with images that I hope aren’t too timeworn.
The five artworks that follow are prints made by photographing arrangements of scrap metal, then digitally manipulating the photos, almost beyond recognition, into colorful abstractions. In my daily meanderings, things I chance upon — sometimes remnants — can spark poetic metaphors, as well as impel me to visually capture or transform them.
www.artspartner.org/artists/view/glenn-laura.html
Ithaca, NY-based poet and visual artist
The first three drawings address childhood, memory, and loss. The Dig shows found objects from our yard (a poem of the same title is available by navigating the interactive map above). Digging a garden turned into a kind of archaeological dig, in which lost trinkets and small toys were unearthed. Turnover is a drawing I made of a couple of curios from the house I grew up in; afterward, I digitally reversed the black and white, and added sepia tones. Untitled Drawing considers the passage of time, with images that I hope aren’t too timeworn.
The five artworks that follow are prints made by photographing arrangements of scrap metal, then digitally manipulating the photos, almost beyond recognition, into colorful abstractions. In my daily meanderings, things I chance upon — sometimes remnants — can spark poetic metaphors, as well as impel me to visually capture or transform them.
www.artspartner.org/artists/view/glenn-laura.html
Andrei Guruianu
Pennsylvania, USA
Collage and photography. The collages combine charcoal sketches and magazine cut-outs (mostly 1960s - 1980s). Magazines picked up in bulk at garage sales on Long Island, NY. The juxtaposition of image, text, and drawings create new avenues for interpretation, new stories, giving new life to items otherwise slated for the trash or recycling bin. The photographs were taken primarily in Istanbul, Turkey and Bucharest, Romania and feature an antique store selling old photographs, records, books, even a champagne bottle; men rummaging through a garbage heap looking for recyclables, mostly metal and small electronic devices whose copper wires could be sold for a profit; a young man carries a backpack made of old computer floppy disks; a plastic bag recently washed awaits its next purpose; plastic barrels collect rainwater for bathing and feeding animals; a strip from an old shirt used to tie and suspend tomato vines is wrapped around a rusty pole; and various food containers and jars now have new lives holding paint, brushes, pickles and jams, nuts and bolts.
www.andreiguruianu.com
Pennsylvania, USA
Collage and photography. The collages combine charcoal sketches and magazine cut-outs (mostly 1960s - 1980s). Magazines picked up in bulk at garage sales on Long Island, NY. The juxtaposition of image, text, and drawings create new avenues for interpretation, new stories, giving new life to items otherwise slated for the trash or recycling bin. The photographs were taken primarily in Istanbul, Turkey and Bucharest, Romania and feature an antique store selling old photographs, records, books, even a champagne bottle; men rummaging through a garbage heap looking for recyclables, mostly metal and small electronic devices whose copper wires could be sold for a profit; a young man carries a backpack made of old computer floppy disks; a plastic bag recently washed awaits its next purpose; plastic barrels collect rainwater for bathing and feeding animals; a strip from an old shirt used to tie and suspend tomato vines is wrapped around a rusty pole; and various food containers and jars now have new lives holding paint, brushes, pickles and jams, nuts and bolts.
www.andreiguruianu.com
Chuck Haupt
Binghamton, NY-based photographer
I first became interested in photography in my pre-teen years after I sent in product labels for a free Kodak Instamatic. Then I was hooked. I quickly upgraded cameras to an SLR, shooting nature. In high school I was exposed to photojournalism, which got me interested in telling people’s stories visually. I went on to do this professionally for 36 years, mostly at the Press & Sun-Bulletin in Binghamton, NY. My work as a photojournalist has taken me to a wide variety of places, from hospital operating rooms to professional golf tournaments, to lower Manhattan in the hours after the 9/11 attacks, and into the homes of ordinary people with extraordinary stories to tell. Now retired from the newspaper profession, I am back to my first love: shooting nature. Traveling is high on my agenda: I spent four months in 2014 discovering London and beyond, and am now refining my shooting style to mostly black & white. Photography freezes moments in time, forever. The camera alone does not make the picture; I make it, using my eyes, emotions and heart. Using black and white in the final image captures the mood and emotion of the photograph. The images below captures discarded items following the 2011 flood in the Southern Tier of New York.
www.chuckhaupt.com
Binghamton, NY-based photographer
I first became interested in photography in my pre-teen years after I sent in product labels for a free Kodak Instamatic. Then I was hooked. I quickly upgraded cameras to an SLR, shooting nature. In high school I was exposed to photojournalism, which got me interested in telling people’s stories visually. I went on to do this professionally for 36 years, mostly at the Press & Sun-Bulletin in Binghamton, NY. My work as a photojournalist has taken me to a wide variety of places, from hospital operating rooms to professional golf tournaments, to lower Manhattan in the hours after the 9/11 attacks, and into the homes of ordinary people with extraordinary stories to tell. Now retired from the newspaper profession, I am back to my first love: shooting nature. Traveling is high on my agenda: I spent four months in 2014 discovering London and beyond, and am now refining my shooting style to mostly black & white. Photography freezes moments in time, forever. The camera alone does not make the picture; I make it, using my eyes, emotions and heart. Using black and white in the final image captures the mood and emotion of the photograph. The images below captures discarded items following the 2011 flood in the Southern Tier of New York.
www.chuckhaupt.com
Jane Higgins
Gilbertsville, NY – Assemblages and Collage
Jane was born and raised in Sidney, in Upstate NY. She began drawing at an early age due to the influence of her mother, portrait artist Louise Higgins. She majored in fine art at SUNY Oneonta, studying drawing, watercolor painting, oil painting, and printmaking. She also studied art history, sculpture, and fresco painting at the University of Siena, Italy. After receiving her BA in 1980, she relocated to Southern California, where she pursued a career in graphic art and typography. In 1994, she and her late husband, Albert Caranci, moved back to upstate NY, eventually settling in Gilbertsville. From 1998 through 2010, she operated an art gallery out of the studio in her carriage barn. In 1993, during a bout of unemployment, she began to experiment with collage. She began by piecing together items from packages her mother had sent over the years: autumn leaves, pressed flowers, bird feathers, photographs, and newspaper clippings. Then she began to incorporate images she had cut out of magazines and calendars. She found this previously unexplored medium completely absorbing and intensely therapeutic. Collage allows her to express her unique artistic vision in a way that no other medium ever has. She is fascinated with finding new meanings through the unexpected juxtaposition of images into new compositions. She experiences self-discovery by sorting through levels of meaning in images through free association. Jane believes that art should be fun, so humor is an important aspect. Part of the joy of collage occurs when one compositional idea will “morph” into an entirely new direction. Inspiration for her work draws on Greek myths, the Bible, fairy tales, Shakespearean plays, modern life, and autobiographical elements. She has shown her award-winning collages in galleries throughout the region, including three solo exhibits at the Art Mission in Binghamton; Bright Hill, Treadwell; and the Chenango County Council of the Arts. Her work has also been shown at the Cooperstown Art Association, the Smithy-Pioneer Gallery, The Roxbury Arts Group, the Kirkland Art Center, Clinton; and at the Kubiak Gallery, UCCCA, in Oneonta; and is in private collections in NY, Los Angeles, Seattle, St. Louis, Las Vegas, and Paris, France.
Gilbertsville, NY – Assemblages and Collage
Jane was born and raised in Sidney, in Upstate NY. She began drawing at an early age due to the influence of her mother, portrait artist Louise Higgins. She majored in fine art at SUNY Oneonta, studying drawing, watercolor painting, oil painting, and printmaking. She also studied art history, sculpture, and fresco painting at the University of Siena, Italy. After receiving her BA in 1980, she relocated to Southern California, where she pursued a career in graphic art and typography. In 1994, she and her late husband, Albert Caranci, moved back to upstate NY, eventually settling in Gilbertsville. From 1998 through 2010, she operated an art gallery out of the studio in her carriage barn. In 1993, during a bout of unemployment, she began to experiment with collage. She began by piecing together items from packages her mother had sent over the years: autumn leaves, pressed flowers, bird feathers, photographs, and newspaper clippings. Then she began to incorporate images she had cut out of magazines and calendars. She found this previously unexplored medium completely absorbing and intensely therapeutic. Collage allows her to express her unique artistic vision in a way that no other medium ever has. She is fascinated with finding new meanings through the unexpected juxtaposition of images into new compositions. She experiences self-discovery by sorting through levels of meaning in images through free association. Jane believes that art should be fun, so humor is an important aspect. Part of the joy of collage occurs when one compositional idea will “morph” into an entirely new direction. Inspiration for her work draws on Greek myths, the Bible, fairy tales, Shakespearean plays, modern life, and autobiographical elements. She has shown her award-winning collages in galleries throughout the region, including three solo exhibits at the Art Mission in Binghamton; Bright Hill, Treadwell; and the Chenango County Council of the Arts. Her work has also been shown at the Cooperstown Art Association, the Smithy-Pioneer Gallery, The Roxbury Arts Group, the Kirkland Art Center, Clinton; and at the Kubiak Gallery, UCCCA, in Oneonta; and is in private collections in NY, Los Angeles, Seattle, St. Louis, Las Vegas, and Paris, France.
Dianne Hoffman
California-based artist – Mixed Media, Assemblages and Collage
Dianne Hoffman is a self taught mixed media artist with a primary focus in found objects and recycled materials mingled with collage, paint and clay. Her work conveys nostalgic stories with impactful sentiment. She was born and raised in the suburbs of Southern California and moved North to become a resident of San Francisco in 1988. The City by the Bay, with its loving embrace of everything extraordinary and endless resource of possibilities, came to nurture and cultivate her creative impulses. She has been a full time artist of salvaged and repurposed components since 2010 with work found in collections worldwide including Hong Kong, Australia, Africa, Europe and throughout the continental U.S. Dianne maintains an abundant workspace at Arc Studios and Gallery in the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco. She also serves as an active member of both ArtSpan and
City Art Cooperative Gallery.
Artist's Statement
I have a tendency to personify inanimate objects and feel genuine compassion for those that are damaged or disregarded. I see potential in broken bits and find beauty in rust and erosion. The older an object, the more haunting and alluring its ghost. Collage & assemblage art allow me to indulge these concepts by creating small worlds in a box where tall tales are told, jokes are cracked, emotions stirred, poems imparted and songs are sung.
My treasure hunt is rummaging through thrift shops, flea markets, re-use centers, garage sales, junkyards, attics and basements for precious baubles, bits and boxes. Sometimes an inspired idea for an assemblage will come upon first sight of an object. But more often I will mull through my neatly organized piles of arbitrary things repetitively placing random items together until something visually clicks and the piece takes hold.
I like to link organic objects from nature with metallic, industrial remnants and combine complimentary muted color schemes to harmonize dissimilar media. The narrative facet of each piece often derives from the variety of music I am listening to, a poem or phrase that strikes me, or a sentiment I’d like to give a visual context to. I hope to convey the equal yet delicate balance of light and dark. Both are required to experience the other and there is whimsy, sincerity and magnetism to be found in their unified stories.
www.diannehoffman.net
California-based artist – Mixed Media, Assemblages and Collage
Dianne Hoffman is a self taught mixed media artist with a primary focus in found objects and recycled materials mingled with collage, paint and clay. Her work conveys nostalgic stories with impactful sentiment. She was born and raised in the suburbs of Southern California and moved North to become a resident of San Francisco in 1988. The City by the Bay, with its loving embrace of everything extraordinary and endless resource of possibilities, came to nurture and cultivate her creative impulses. She has been a full time artist of salvaged and repurposed components since 2010 with work found in collections worldwide including Hong Kong, Australia, Africa, Europe and throughout the continental U.S. Dianne maintains an abundant workspace at Arc Studios and Gallery in the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco. She also serves as an active member of both ArtSpan and
City Art Cooperative Gallery.
Artist's Statement
I have a tendency to personify inanimate objects and feel genuine compassion for those that are damaged or disregarded. I see potential in broken bits and find beauty in rust and erosion. The older an object, the more haunting and alluring its ghost. Collage & assemblage art allow me to indulge these concepts by creating small worlds in a box where tall tales are told, jokes are cracked, emotions stirred, poems imparted and songs are sung.
My treasure hunt is rummaging through thrift shops, flea markets, re-use centers, garage sales, junkyards, attics and basements for precious baubles, bits and boxes. Sometimes an inspired idea for an assemblage will come upon first sight of an object. But more often I will mull through my neatly organized piles of arbitrary things repetitively placing random items together until something visually clicks and the piece takes hold.
I like to link organic objects from nature with metallic, industrial remnants and combine complimentary muted color schemes to harmonize dissimilar media. The narrative facet of each piece often derives from the variety of music I am listening to, a poem or phrase that strikes me, or a sentiment I’d like to give a visual context to. I hope to convey the equal yet delicate balance of light and dark. Both are required to experience the other and there is whimsy, sincerity and magnetism to be found in their unified stories.
www.diannehoffman.net
Sandra Hopkins
Northern Colorado-based Fiber Artist
Fabrics hold our histories; landscape holds our futures. We belong to the land, and the land reflects us. In bringing ourselves fully to a place, we are shown who we are. We see our fragmentation, our limitations and our vulnerabilities. We are confronted with our loves: our discarded objects, places, and people.
My technique evolved from a stubborn refusal to throw out scraps and remnants of fabric. Those remnants held histories and symbolized people in their perceived raggedness. I reclaim discarded fabrics and stories by quilting them together, offering witness to wholeness, or holiness, revealed in disconnected, ordinary histories.
In my work I seek to explore and help us learn to look again at our landscapes and our interaction with our places. Landscape invites us into humility and wonder: to experience being part of something larger than ourselves, to see Heaven and Hell. In being present to our places we are given revelations that shape our stories to come. Nothing is waste; all that is has value.
www.sandrajhopkins.com
Northern Colorado-based Fiber Artist
Fabrics hold our histories; landscape holds our futures. We belong to the land, and the land reflects us. In bringing ourselves fully to a place, we are shown who we are. We see our fragmentation, our limitations and our vulnerabilities. We are confronted with our loves: our discarded objects, places, and people.
My technique evolved from a stubborn refusal to throw out scraps and remnants of fabric. Those remnants held histories and symbolized people in their perceived raggedness. I reclaim discarded fabrics and stories by quilting them together, offering witness to wholeness, or holiness, revealed in disconnected, ordinary histories.
In my work I seek to explore and help us learn to look again at our landscapes and our interaction with our places. Landscape invites us into humility and wonder: to experience being part of something larger than ourselves, to see Heaven and Hell. In being present to our places we are given revelations that shape our stories to come. Nothing is waste; all that is has value.
www.sandrajhopkins.com
Christopher Hynes
Austin, Texas-based artist – Assemblages and Collage
I have been collecting discarded bits and pieces of our throw away culture along with rocks and other natural artifacts that I stumbled on in the urban wastelands of the Washington D.C. where I grew up. As I got older, I started collecting “junk” across this vast nation of consumerism that we live in. These flotsam and jetsam, along with the scrap wood, wire, kitchen drawers and other materials that I salvage from my day job are the backbone of my work. I love to tell stories with this kind of ”junk” by appropriating these materials and changing their iconography to give these objects new meaning and life.
christopherhynes.com lyrical-expressions.com
Austin, Texas-based artist – Assemblages and Collage
I have been collecting discarded bits and pieces of our throw away culture along with rocks and other natural artifacts that I stumbled on in the urban wastelands of the Washington D.C. where I grew up. As I got older, I started collecting “junk” across this vast nation of consumerism that we live in. These flotsam and jetsam, along with the scrap wood, wire, kitchen drawers and other materials that I salvage from my day job are the backbone of my work. I love to tell stories with this kind of ”junk” by appropriating these materials and changing their iconography to give these objects new meaning and life.
christopherhynes.com lyrical-expressions.com
Peg Johnston
Binghamton, NY-based visual artist
The first two shadow box assemblages were inspired by a box of “orphaned” photographs rescued from the trash. They are not my family, but I created an imaginary family with mementos. Of course, as the creator of these assemblages, I plucked objects from my own childhood. What is interesting about these pieces is the gender binary. In that era, there were very different objects for boys and girls and different roles for men and women. As a child, I lusted after my brothers’ adventures—popping cap guns, finding an arrowhead, playing with action figures, and engaging in snowball fights. The little girl’s world centers around church—communion cards, pictures, the veil. But there is also the robin’s egg, the favorite dog toy and the snapshot of the neighborhood gang and for the adults, dominoes. The war intruded in this family’s life, changing the trajectory of the young soldier’s life and altering the memories and the importance of objects. In memory, we get to pick and choose what endures and art allows us to create a coherent image of our own history.
www.cooperativegallery.com/artists/15
Binghamton, NY-based visual artist
The first two shadow box assemblages were inspired by a box of “orphaned” photographs rescued from the trash. They are not my family, but I created an imaginary family with mementos. Of course, as the creator of these assemblages, I plucked objects from my own childhood. What is interesting about these pieces is the gender binary. In that era, there were very different objects for boys and girls and different roles for men and women. As a child, I lusted after my brothers’ adventures—popping cap guns, finding an arrowhead, playing with action figures, and engaging in snowball fights. The little girl’s world centers around church—communion cards, pictures, the veil. But there is also the robin’s egg, the favorite dog toy and the snapshot of the neighborhood gang and for the adults, dominoes. The war intruded in this family’s life, changing the trajectory of the young soldier’s life and altering the memories and the importance of objects. In memory, we get to pick and choose what endures and art allows us to create a coherent image of our own history.
www.cooperativegallery.com/artists/15
Dina Kelberman
Baltimore, MD-based artist
I am very interested in resourcefulness and enjoy setting up limitations and then seeing what is possible within them. In this way my work is very much a game. I make things as I am compelled to make them and consider why later, often making connections I didn’t consciously set out to realize. Much of my work comes out of my natural tendency to spend long hours collecting and organizing imagery from the internet, television, and other commonplace surroundings of my everyday life.
I gravitate towards things that are simple, colorful, industrial, and mundane. I am also interested in using materials that are easily accessible and familiar to the everyday person. My work seeks to elevate the familiar and transform brief moments into infinite stretches of time. In close examination of the simple or the seemingly insignificant the viewer may bring their own limitless associations.
I'm Google (2011-ongoing), consists of found images, videos, and video stills (typically of bright, colorful everyday objects) that are found using Google's search engines and arranged in a sequence such that each image bears some resemblance or connection to the previous one. While the work does not engage directly with the material objects themselves, by collecting and presenting in new ways the virtual traces of our lives the project functions as a testament to our fascination to record and preserve the sheer amount of things we encounter on a daily basis. Below are some screen shots from the project that focus specifically on discarded objects and trash/waste.
Browse the complete archive here: http://dinakelberman.tumblr.com/
Baltimore, MD-based artist
I am very interested in resourcefulness and enjoy setting up limitations and then seeing what is possible within them. In this way my work is very much a game. I make things as I am compelled to make them and consider why later, often making connections I didn’t consciously set out to realize. Much of my work comes out of my natural tendency to spend long hours collecting and organizing imagery from the internet, television, and other commonplace surroundings of my everyday life.
I gravitate towards things that are simple, colorful, industrial, and mundane. I am also interested in using materials that are easily accessible and familiar to the everyday person. My work seeks to elevate the familiar and transform brief moments into infinite stretches of time. In close examination of the simple or the seemingly insignificant the viewer may bring their own limitless associations.
I'm Google (2011-ongoing), consists of found images, videos, and video stills (typically of bright, colorful everyday objects) that are found using Google's search engines and arranged in a sequence such that each image bears some resemblance or connection to the previous one. While the work does not engage directly with the material objects themselves, by collecting and presenting in new ways the virtual traces of our lives the project functions as a testament to our fascination to record and preserve the sheer amount of things we encounter on a daily basis. Below are some screen shots from the project that focus specifically on discarded objects and trash/waste.
Browse the complete archive here: http://dinakelberman.tumblr.com/
Paula Morales in collaboration with Gutta Gali and Anita Giansante
Watching Themselves Live, a show originally on display at The Diego Rivera Gallery at 800 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA
Time can be like the passage of a storm, moving so strong, that you can’t make sense of how it has hit you. However when trying to unravel the stories of what–and who–survived such journey, all you have is a faint whisper. You can imagine the storm they faced, and project it in a body. But the storm is not there anymore. All you have are voices you can barely hear.
With time and ephemera as a premise through an installation made of found objects, we intend to explore the passage of time and what that entails. We are interested in all of which has been revealed and continues to be revealed about people through objects left behind after death. We intend to address the untranslatability of the whisper that comes from objects, and our personal struggle in trying to understand them.
Personal cultural displacement continuously make us revisit our history in a quest to understand our identity. And with this installation we intend to create an environment that translates our feeling throughout this process. Death lives amongst us and the study of objects and their connections of remembrance opens other doors into the evidence that ephemera can still serve as an interactive channel.
www.paula-morales.com
Watching Themselves Live, a show originally on display at The Diego Rivera Gallery at 800 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA
Time can be like the passage of a storm, moving so strong, that you can’t make sense of how it has hit you. However when trying to unravel the stories of what–and who–survived such journey, all you have is a faint whisper. You can imagine the storm they faced, and project it in a body. But the storm is not there anymore. All you have are voices you can barely hear.
With time and ephemera as a premise through an installation made of found objects, we intend to explore the passage of time and what that entails. We are interested in all of which has been revealed and continues to be revealed about people through objects left behind after death. We intend to address the untranslatability of the whisper that comes from objects, and our personal struggle in trying to understand them.
Personal cultural displacement continuously make us revisit our history in a quest to understand our identity. And with this installation we intend to create an environment that translates our feeling throughout this process. Death lives amongst us and the study of objects and their connections of remembrance opens other doors into the evidence that ephemera can still serve as an interactive channel.
www.paula-morales.com
Megan Murtha
New York, NY-based playwright, director, composer
This collection of assemblages titled, Women of Saranac, is the result of a junk shop find in Saranac Lake, NY. Making my way through the tiny trails that curled throughout a cavernous multi-room (and multi-level) store, a page torn out of a photo album featuring four photographs of individual women caught my eye. The page was laying loosely on top of a pile of photos that were on top of a pile of crates that were on top of a pile of rugs. These were no ordinary photographs. Taken at the turn of the nineteenth century, one features a woman standing boldly on top of a tree stump, another standing on top of a roof, another peeking out of a second story window, and another, looking directly at the camera, grinning with a flash in her eyes that goads one to follow her down whatever road it is she is traveling.
Relics of the past have inspired me since childhood, and I have always felt a personal mission to resurrect and rearticulate the depths of objects that can only echo meanings into now. As an artist who works with objects, I find that I serve as a medium of sorts, like a conduit that brings forward those depths of meaning I can feel pulsing just below the surface. I do this through text, song, and curation, as well as assemblage. This collection features assemblage work that were attempts to capture the essence felt from each photograph by using found objects, natural materials and collage. Each box also has a companion monologue, four in total, that were performed by four female actors who would open and close the boxes to reveal the assemblages inside at specified moments.
To ensure that the women in the photographs did not get lost during the performance, the image of each photograph was projected while the respective performer spoke, rendering each woman in turn as larger than life, a series of visages. The women also had moments of speaking together, both in unison and by taking turns to generate a collective speech, much how I felt when I encountered them as a collective on the torn-out page from an unknown album.
There is something in some people that cannot throw a random page of photographs of strangers away. There is something in some people that can. Objects tether me to my past, a place that can feel so strange and distant, almost nonexistent, almost where someone else has been and belongs. The objects I surround myself with anchor me as well as spin me out on threads that reach from them towards that which is possible and only needs to be listened to.
Megan Murtha is a theater maker (playwright, director, composer) whose work has been performed at Classic Stage Company, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, The Bushwick Starr, BAX, and most recently at The Tank, where her toy theatre double-feature collaboration with artist, Mark Fox, was presented. She is a MacDowell Colony Fellow and has been a Visiting Artist at Bucknell University and St. Mary’s College of Maryland where she led object theatre workshops, which culminated in gallery installation performances. She teaches writing at New York University.
New York, NY-based playwright, director, composer
This collection of assemblages titled, Women of Saranac, is the result of a junk shop find in Saranac Lake, NY. Making my way through the tiny trails that curled throughout a cavernous multi-room (and multi-level) store, a page torn out of a photo album featuring four photographs of individual women caught my eye. The page was laying loosely on top of a pile of photos that were on top of a pile of crates that were on top of a pile of rugs. These were no ordinary photographs. Taken at the turn of the nineteenth century, one features a woman standing boldly on top of a tree stump, another standing on top of a roof, another peeking out of a second story window, and another, looking directly at the camera, grinning with a flash in her eyes that goads one to follow her down whatever road it is she is traveling.
Relics of the past have inspired me since childhood, and I have always felt a personal mission to resurrect and rearticulate the depths of objects that can only echo meanings into now. As an artist who works with objects, I find that I serve as a medium of sorts, like a conduit that brings forward those depths of meaning I can feel pulsing just below the surface. I do this through text, song, and curation, as well as assemblage. This collection features assemblage work that were attempts to capture the essence felt from each photograph by using found objects, natural materials and collage. Each box also has a companion monologue, four in total, that were performed by four female actors who would open and close the boxes to reveal the assemblages inside at specified moments.
To ensure that the women in the photographs did not get lost during the performance, the image of each photograph was projected while the respective performer spoke, rendering each woman in turn as larger than life, a series of visages. The women also had moments of speaking together, both in unison and by taking turns to generate a collective speech, much how I felt when I encountered them as a collective on the torn-out page from an unknown album.
There is something in some people that cannot throw a random page of photographs of strangers away. There is something in some people that can. Objects tether me to my past, a place that can feel so strange and distant, almost nonexistent, almost where someone else has been and belongs. The objects I surround myself with anchor me as well as spin me out on threads that reach from them towards that which is possible and only needs to be listened to.
Megan Murtha is a theater maker (playwright, director, composer) whose work has been performed at Classic Stage Company, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, The Bushwick Starr, BAX, and most recently at The Tank, where her toy theatre double-feature collaboration with artist, Mark Fox, was presented. She is a MacDowell Colony Fellow and has been a Visiting Artist at Bucknell University and St. Mary’s College of Maryland where she led object theatre workshops, which culminated in gallery installation performances. She teaches writing at New York University.
Nancy Ryan
Vestal, NY-based visual artist
In Ryan's work, drawing is always at the core. It serves as an extraction process, attempting to pull out the true meaning and relevance of the subject in hopes of leaving behind the extraneous and the obvious. If the drawing tells us what we already know it will leave us cold. The abstract pieces featured here are monoprints that have been printed in various ways using collograph plates created from materials found by the side of the road. Ryan especially likes to print from things that have been run over and flattened by cars because they run easily through an etching press. The ones seen here include rubberized paint that is used on the streets and has come loose and fallen off in irregular sheets, a used coffee filter, and old cardboard pieces. The drawings are of dolls, which are all "broken" in some way, discarded for missing arms, etc.
www.cooperativegallery.com/artists/21
Vestal, NY-based visual artist
In Ryan's work, drawing is always at the core. It serves as an extraction process, attempting to pull out the true meaning and relevance of the subject in hopes of leaving behind the extraneous and the obvious. If the drawing tells us what we already know it will leave us cold. The abstract pieces featured here are monoprints that have been printed in various ways using collograph plates created from materials found by the side of the road. Ryan especially likes to print from things that have been run over and flattened by cars because they run easily through an etching press. The ones seen here include rubberized paint that is used on the streets and has come loose and fallen off in irregular sheets, a used coffee filter, and old cardboard pieces. The drawings are of dolls, which are all "broken" in some way, discarded for missing arms, etc.
www.cooperativegallery.com/artists/21
Kathy Sirico
San Francisco, CA-based artist (mixed media)
I reimagine painting as a language of skins and structures. I sculpturally re-envision actions of painting through experimental upholstery, weaving, assemblage and other textile practices.
Through processing material, I raise questions of ecological and biological futurity. Repetition references natural accumulation, both ecologically and malignantly in the body. Bulges and growths are both hospitable and pestilent, referencing comforting interior spaces and genetic modification. Furniture objects attract and repel, destabilizing notions of comfort within a domestic space. These question the authenticity of natural and artificial, and of memory and fiction within a biological and ecological context.
Future Comforts is a body of work that deals specifically with narratives of chemicals, GMOs, makeup, and other artificial substances we produce and consume. It looks at their impact on ecological systems and body dysfunctions. I apply paint to hand-made furniture and both recycled and new materials, transforming them into repellently beautiful objects that show us a dangerous biological futurity.
www.kathysirico.com
Image Inventory:
“Sugar Rush", 2016
wood, canvas, satin, felt, sheet foam, acrylic, latex paint, spray paint, polymer, eye shadow, 27”x 32.5"x 19”
(2 views and a detail shot)
"It's a Cotton Candy World", 2015
felt, polyester fiber fill, acrylic, latex paint, thread, 21”x 30”x10.5”
"Queen (Bulge Chair)", 2016
wood, metal, polyester fiber fill, upholstery canvas, satin, polyester chiffon, bed sheets, canvas, fabric dye. 30”x 46”x 65”
(and detail shot)
"Worm", 2016
cotton, polyester fiber fill, acrylic, fabric dye, fabric pigment, latex paint, spray paint, cotton thread, 35"x76”x30”
"Soft Growth 1”, 2015
cotton, polyester fiber fill, fabric dye, fabric pigment, acrylic, latex paint, polyester fiber fill, thread, 46” x 35” x 6”
(and detail shot)
San Francisco, CA-based artist (mixed media)
I reimagine painting as a language of skins and structures. I sculpturally re-envision actions of painting through experimental upholstery, weaving, assemblage and other textile practices.
Through processing material, I raise questions of ecological and biological futurity. Repetition references natural accumulation, both ecologically and malignantly in the body. Bulges and growths are both hospitable and pestilent, referencing comforting interior spaces and genetic modification. Furniture objects attract and repel, destabilizing notions of comfort within a domestic space. These question the authenticity of natural and artificial, and of memory and fiction within a biological and ecological context.
Future Comforts is a body of work that deals specifically with narratives of chemicals, GMOs, makeup, and other artificial substances we produce and consume. It looks at their impact on ecological systems and body dysfunctions. I apply paint to hand-made furniture and both recycled and new materials, transforming them into repellently beautiful objects that show us a dangerous biological futurity.
www.kathysirico.com
Image Inventory:
“Sugar Rush", 2016
wood, canvas, satin, felt, sheet foam, acrylic, latex paint, spray paint, polymer, eye shadow, 27”x 32.5"x 19”
(2 views and a detail shot)
"It's a Cotton Candy World", 2015
felt, polyester fiber fill, acrylic, latex paint, thread, 21”x 30”x10.5”
"Queen (Bulge Chair)", 2016
wood, metal, polyester fiber fill, upholstery canvas, satin, polyester chiffon, bed sheets, canvas, fabric dye. 30”x 46”x 65”
(and detail shot)
"Worm", 2016
cotton, polyester fiber fill, acrylic, fabric dye, fabric pigment, latex paint, spray paint, cotton thread, 35"x76”x30”
"Soft Growth 1”, 2015
cotton, polyester fiber fill, fabric dye, fabric pigment, acrylic, latex paint, polyester fiber fill, thread, 46” x 35” x 6”
(and detail shot)
Terri St. Arnauld & Frank Yezer
Austin, TX, US Artists/Photographers
These images are from a series we created using found and collected articles/objects. They might be collected by us or someone else, or we have augmented someone else’s collection. These are part of an ongoing project, titled Implications, in which two similar images are printed in platinum on hand-coated cotton paper, then interwoven. This results in images that at times are cubist; provide a trompe l'oeil effect; place emphasis on certain areas of or objects in the image; give a dimensionality to the piece; play with the viewer’s expectations; or can even add a sense of motion when a person is in the image. Several of the photographs contain a majority of items belonging to a single person, intimating a biography or memorial of sorts.
www.PlatinumPortraitsPhoto.com
Austin, TX, US Artists/Photographers
These images are from a series we created using found and collected articles/objects. They might be collected by us or someone else, or we have augmented someone else’s collection. These are part of an ongoing project, titled Implications, in which two similar images are printed in platinum on hand-coated cotton paper, then interwoven. This results in images that at times are cubist; provide a trompe l'oeil effect; place emphasis on certain areas of or objects in the image; give a dimensionality to the piece; play with the viewer’s expectations; or can even add a sense of motion when a person is in the image. Several of the photographs contain a majority of items belonging to a single person, intimating a biography or memorial of sorts.
www.PlatinumPortraitsPhoto.com
Ruby Silvious
New York-based visual artist
As a mixed-media recycle artist, Silvious reimagines the familiar by breathing new life to found and discarded objects. In January 2015, Ruby Silvious began a yearlong visual journal using tea as her subject. The paintings were created on used, emptied-out tea bags, a medium that the artist discovered while experimenting with diverse recycled materials as her canvas, among them pistachio shells and eggshells. Silvious was educated in the U.S., Europe and Asia; she currently lives in New York's Hudson Valley. Her art is exhibited internationally, and is featured in public and private collections.
www.rubysilvious.com
New York-based visual artist
As a mixed-media recycle artist, Silvious reimagines the familiar by breathing new life to found and discarded objects. In January 2015, Ruby Silvious began a yearlong visual journal using tea as her subject. The paintings were created on used, emptied-out tea bags, a medium that the artist discovered while experimenting with diverse recycled materials as her canvas, among them pistachio shells and eggshells. Silvious was educated in the U.S., Europe and Asia; she currently lives in New York's Hudson Valley. Her art is exhibited internationally, and is featured in public and private collections.
www.rubysilvious.com
Wendy Stewart
Saskatchewan, Canada / Vestal, NY
A Place for Everything: This diorama uses dollhouse furniture from the artist’s childhood, toys from Christmas crackers, gum machines, and the dentist’s treasure chest, candy box letters, magazine titles, and the like to bring to life an old American lullaby, “Hush, Little Baby.” In this song, Mama (or Papa, or whoever’s singing) promises Little Baby a series of rewards in exchange for not crying. But the mockingbird won’t sing (actually, none of the animals does what it’s supposed to); the diamond ring’s a fake; the mirror breaks; etc. A sensible person would get rid of all these unsatisfactory things.
But what if, rather than being discarded, the bird, the ring, the looking-glass, the billy goat, the cart, the bull, the dog, the horse, and the second cart all stick around—forever? And what if Mama and Little Baby live in the Versailles, an 11 ½” x 3” x 3” herb garden starter box? Then we get “A Place for Everything,” which explores its creator’s split vision of both providing everything her child could want and organizing it, as well as her child’s escape from that fantasy’s harrowing effects.
Originally exhibited in a little worlds exhibition in London, Ontario in 2007 (where it won first place for “Best Delineation of Order out of Chaos”; it should be noted that it was the only one of its kind), “A Place for Everything” is happy to find a new home as part of “The Afterlife of Discarded Objects.” *Read the lyrics to "Hush, Little Baby" HERE and try to find in the diorama all of the rewards promised in the lullaby. (Photo credit: Kally Schoenfeldt)
Saskatchewan, Canada / Vestal, NY
A Place for Everything: This diorama uses dollhouse furniture from the artist’s childhood, toys from Christmas crackers, gum machines, and the dentist’s treasure chest, candy box letters, magazine titles, and the like to bring to life an old American lullaby, “Hush, Little Baby.” In this song, Mama (or Papa, or whoever’s singing) promises Little Baby a series of rewards in exchange for not crying. But the mockingbird won’t sing (actually, none of the animals does what it’s supposed to); the diamond ring’s a fake; the mirror breaks; etc. A sensible person would get rid of all these unsatisfactory things.
But what if, rather than being discarded, the bird, the ring, the looking-glass, the billy goat, the cart, the bull, the dog, the horse, and the second cart all stick around—forever? And what if Mama and Little Baby live in the Versailles, an 11 ½” x 3” x 3” herb garden starter box? Then we get “A Place for Everything,” which explores its creator’s split vision of both providing everything her child could want and organizing it, as well as her child’s escape from that fantasy’s harrowing effects.
Originally exhibited in a little worlds exhibition in London, Ontario in 2007 (where it won first place for “Best Delineation of Order out of Chaos”; it should be noted that it was the only one of its kind), “A Place for Everything” is happy to find a new home as part of “The Afterlife of Discarded Objects.” *Read the lyrics to "Hush, Little Baby" HERE and try to find in the diorama all of the rewards promised in the lullaby. (Photo credit: Kally Schoenfeldt)
Teknari
Binghamton, NY-based visual artist
In 2015 Teknari set out to create an artist's journal documenting his work, with the plan to create four original art entries per day. These included his own photography, sketches and drawings, as well as hand-written records of each day's events. As the journal project grew, it came to include found and kept objects such as ticket stubs, receipts, and old unwanted photographs. At the end of the project, the journal turned into more than a collection of art works and more of a record of one man's life as it unfolded over the course of an entire year. Each journal contains hand-sewn artworks and ephemera, and are bound by the artist.
www.teknari.com
Binghamton, NY-based visual artist
In 2015 Teknari set out to create an artist's journal documenting his work, with the plan to create four original art entries per day. These included his own photography, sketches and drawings, as well as hand-written records of each day's events. As the journal project grew, it came to include found and kept objects such as ticket stubs, receipts, and old unwanted photographs. At the end of the project, the journal turned into more than a collection of art works and more of a record of one man's life as it unfolded over the course of an entire year. Each journal contains hand-sewn artworks and ephemera, and are bound by the artist.
www.teknari.com
