Art by Medium: Found Objects

Blue, black and red assemblage painting created with found materials and acrylic paint. Work is titled by the artist and dated 2011. Artist Biography: Lucinda Cobley was born in 19...

medium: trumpet, aluminum (found cans), stainless steel wire, soot, enamel Paul Villinski has created studio and large-scale artworks for more than three decades. Villinski was born in York, Maine, USA, in 1960, son of an Air Force navigator. He has lived and worked in New York City since 1982. A scenic route through the educational system included stops at Phillips Exeter Academy and the Massachusetts College of Art, and a BFA with honors from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1984. He lives with his partner, the painter Amy Park, and their son, Lark, in their studios in Long Island City, NY. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions nationally, recently including the solo exhibitions “Paul Villinski: Burst” at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, TX and “Passage: A Special Installation,” at the Blanton Museum, University of Texas, Austin. Recent group shows include “Material Transformations” at the Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, AL; “Re: Collection,” at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY; “Making Mends,” at the Bellevue Museum of Arts, Bellevue, WA; and “Prospect .1,” an international Biennial in New Orleans, LA. “Emergency Response Studio,” a FEMA trailer transformed into an off-the-grid mobile artist’s studio, was the subject of a solo exhibition at Rice University Art Gallery, Houston, TX; the exhibition also travelled to Ballroom Marfa, in Marfa, TX; Wesleyan University’s Zilkha Gallery, Middletown, CT; and ERS was featured in the New Museum’s “Festival of Ideas for the New City”, in New York, NY. Villinski’s work is widely collected, including major commissioned public works including “SkyCycles,” three full-scale “flying bicycles...

This mask was created by an unknown artist from New Guinea. It depicts an elongated face with carved wood and cowry shells for eyes. Mask: 29 x 8 in, incl...

Based in Chicago, IL, contemporary artist Michael Thompson creates unique kites, collages and mixed media works assembled from material fragments of past and present collected in his travels. In his ongoing series of memory jugs, Thompson adorns stoneware vessels with a kaleidoscope of ceramic shards, found objects, and pocket-sized trinkets he collected over the course of his life. Also known as forget-me-not jugs or spirit jars, memory jugs are African American folk art objects that honor a loved one who has recently passed. Small tokens and mementos of the deceased are gathered and affixed to the exterior of a jug or vase, an abundance of memories that celebrates a life lived to the fullest. Michael Thompson applies this tradition to his own practice, creating tactile assemblages of this and that. Formed in the manner of collage, each jug honors the lost memories of generations past and his own memories of personally discovering each item. With varied sources for materials including Kyoto, Turkey, and Mexico, a great number of the found shards are 18th and 19th century ceramics...

In the mid 1990s Richard Klein started working with found glass objects, including bottles, drinking glasses, ashtrays, and eyeglasses. Initially, Klein rejected any object with commercial or advertising content, but in 2015 he became fascinated with the promotional content that was screen printed on ashtrays from the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. This period was before smoking was looked at as being primarily a negative habit, and iconic American businesses, including Howard Johnson’s, International House of Pancakes (iHop) and Holiday Inn, all produced promotional ashtrays printed with their graphic identity. By the time Klein became interested in these objects, the businesses had either ceased to exist, or had changed their logos, and many of their signature buildings, which where examples of classic, “Pop” roadside architecture, has been torn down or repurposed. The artist wanted to connect the glass objects with the business’s sites that were still recognizable and spoke of their history, so he began researching where original buildings still stood. Klein then embarked on a series of road trips to photograph these sites with the intention of combining the photographs with the promotional glass objects. This led him to as far south as Maryland and as far north as upstate New York from his home in Connecticut. American Glassware (2010-present) which is presented in a small, wall-mounted vitrine. American Glassware is composed of three glass objects: a “souvenir” Walden Pond ashtray made by me as a multiple; a real souvenir ashtray from the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair; and an authentic “Happy Face” drinking glass from the same era. They are all nestled in crumpled, vintage newspaper from 1967, and are presented together in a dilapidated cardboard box, as if they have been found in someone’s attic or basement. Once again, in a similar manner to the Glass House Ashtray, versions of his Walden Pond ashtray (Walden Pond Souvenir) have been injected into the collectable stream of tag sales and flea markets, creating a souvenir that never existed. The ashtray is screenprinted with an image of Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond as pictured on the title page of his book Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854). (The original illustration was created by Thoreau’s sister, Sophia.) Walden Pond Souvenir was originally produced for the 2010 exhibition Renovating Walden at the Tufts University Art Gallery in Medford, MA. Richard Klein is a Connecticut-based artist, independent curator and writer. As an artist, he has exhibited widely, including the Neuberger Museum of Art at SUNY Purchase; Caren Golden Fine Art, New York; the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI; Hales Gallery, London; Gavlak Gallery, Palm Beach, FL; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA; James Barron Art, Kent, CT; The Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), Portland, OR; Schoolhouse Gallery, Provincetown, MA; Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, NY; Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY; Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Brattleboro, VT; Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, NY; Exhibit by Alberson Tulsa, OK; Incident Report/Flow Chart Foundation, Hudson, NY; ICEHOUSE Project Space, Sharon, CT; Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Kent, CT and with ODETTA Gallery at the Equity Gallery in New York City.. Reviews of his work have appeared in Two Coats of Paint, Whitehot Magazine, The New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, Art in America, and The New Yorker. In the summer of 2024 he will be the first Artist-In-Residence at Peck Ledge Light...

"On Lake Huron, 1956 B.C." is an original oil pastel on grocery bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece lower right and dated it on the back. It...

Troy Abbott is a multidisciplinary artist working in digital media. His work has been exhibited in the United States and Europe and is in many Private Collections around the world. T...

Roni Nicholson (American, XX), "Flight", Mixed Media on Linen with Assemblage Elements, 1982, signed, titled, and dated verso, unframed. 53.5" H x 54.25" W x 1.25" D. Provenance: A...

Roni Nicholson (American, XX), "A Life #1", Mixed Media on Linen with Assemblage Elements, 1998, signed, titled, and dated verso, unframed. 52.25" H x 54" W x 1.25" D. Provenance: ...

Peyton Pickenpaugh says of her work… In my work, I explore the hidden histories of women, feminist reinterpretations of myth, and the spiritual resonance of materiality. Through lay...

ANASTASIA PELIAS was born in New Orleans, LA to Greek parents. Her artistic practice is rooted in the dual cultural identity of both her native and ancestral roots in New Orleans, LA...

"Whew!" is an original oil pastel drawing on a grocery bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece in the lower left. It depicts a man on a motorcycle doing a wheelie on a be...

"Seeking Funn SEXY friends - mw4mw - 30 (NO ky SO oh)" by Carlton Scott Sturgill. Born in 1971 in Cincinnati, Ohio, CARLTON SCOTT STURGILL received his Masters of Arts (Fine Art) fr...

"Tarkan" is an original oil pastel drawing on a paper bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece on the back. It features an abstract portrait in bright, expressionistic col...

Peyton Pickenpaugh says of her work… In my work, I explore the hidden histories of women, feminist reinterpretations of myth, and the spiritual resonance of materiality. Through lay...

KX2 is a collaboration combining the strengths of artists and sisters Ruth Avra and Dana Kleinman who create mathematically inspired sculpture merging metal and painting. From a dist...

Agudelo (XX), Abstract Composition, Mixed Media Assemblage on Board, 1966, signed and dated right side center, partial wood frame. Overall: 48.25" H x 32.75" W x 1.25" D. Provenanc...

"Smile Park" is an original oil pastel drawing on a grocery bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece lower right and dated it on the back. It features fall foliage on the ...

Miquel Aparici's sculptures are surprising assemblages made from old objects that had other uses in the past, and which the artist recovers and uses in a creative and ingenious way. ...

"Psalm 63:4...While I Live" is a religious original oil pastel drawing on a grocery bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed and titled the piece lower right. This piece illustrates...

TONY DAGRADI is an internationally recognized jazz performer, artist, composer, author, and educator. For over three decades he has made his home in New Orleans, performing on tenor ...

"Concrete Gardens" is a body of work that translates Patrick Burns' deep love of the land and complicated past into richly textured, mixed-media paintings with reverberating, monochr...

Peyton Pickenpaugh says of her work… In my work, I explore the hidden histories of women, feminist reinterpretations of myth, and the spiritual resonance of materiality. Through lay...

Peyton Pickenpaugh says of her work… In my work, I explore the hidden histories of women, feminist reinterpretations of myth, and the spiritual resonance of materiality. Through lay...

KX2 is a collaboration combining the strengths of artists and sisters Ruth Avra and Dana Kleinman who create mathematically inspired sculpture merging metal and painting. From a dist...

"Contrast Form" is an original oil pastel on a Safeway grocery bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece lower left as well as signing & dating it on the back. 13" x ...

Patricia Miranda's work includes interdisciplinary installation, textile, paper and books. The textiles incorporated in these new pieces are vintage linens from her Italian and Irish grandmothers and sourced from friends and strangers around the country. Each donation is documented and integrated into the work. Textile as a form that wraps the body from cradle to grave. The role of lacemaking in the lives of women both economically and historically is packed with metaphorical potential. The relationship of craft and women’s work (re)appropriated by artists today to environmental and social issues is integral to the artist's research. Her work is process oriented; materials are submerged in natural dyes from oak gall wasp nests, cochineal insects, turmeric, indigo, and clay. She forages for raw materials, cook dyes, grind pigments, ecofeminist actions that consider environmental impacts of objects. The process is left visible as dyestuff is unfiltered in the vat and finished work. Sewn into larger works, Miranda incorporates hair, pearls, bone beads, Milagros, cast plaster. The distinct genetics and environmental and cultural history of each material asserts its voice as collaborator rather than medium. The lace inserts a visceral femininity into the pristine gallery, and exerts a ghostly trace of the history of domestic labor. The combination of earth and lace references human and environmental devastation and the conflation of nature and women’s bodies as justifications for exploitation. Mournful and solastalgic, they are lamentations to the violence against women and the earth. Patricia Miranda is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, educator, and founder of The Crit Lab, graduate-level critique seminars and Residency for artists, and MAPSpace project space. She has been Visiting Artist at Vermont Studio Center, the Heckscher Museum, and University of Utah; and been awarded residencies at I-Park, Weir Farm, Vermont Studio Center, and Julio Valdez Printmaking Studio. She received an Anonymous Was a Woman Covid19 Artist Relief Grant, an artist grant from ArtsWestchester/New York State Council on the Arts, and was part of a year-long NEA grant working with homeless youth. Miranda currently teaches graduate curatorial studies at Western Colorado University, and develops programs for K-12, museums, and institutions such as Franklin Furnace. Her work has been exhibited at ODETTA, NYC; ABC No Rio, NYC; Alexey von...

Patricia Miranda's work includes interdisciplinary installation, textile, paper and books. The textiles incorporated in these new pieces are vintage linens from her Italian and Irish grandmothers and sourced from friends and strangers around the country. Each donation is documented and integrated into the work. Textile as a form that wraps the body from cradle to grave. The role of lacemaking in the lives of women both economically and historically is packed with metaphorical potential. The relationship of craft and women’s work (re)appropriated by artists today to environmental and social issues is integral to the artist's research. Her work is process oriented; materials are submerged in natural dyes from oak gall wasp nests, cochineal insects, turmeric, indigo, and clay. She forages for raw materials, cook dyes, grind pigments, ecofeminist actions that consider environmental impacts of objects. The process is left visible as dyestuff is unfiltered in the vat and finished work. Sewn into larger works, Miranda incorporates hair, pearls, bone beads, Milagros, cast plaster. The distinct genetics and environmental and cultural history of each material asserts its voice as collaborator rather than medium. The lace inserts a visceral femininity into the pristine gallery, and exerts a ghostly trace of the history of domestic labor. The combination of earth and lace references human and environmental devastation and the conflation of nature and women’s bodies as justifications for exploitation. Mournful and solastalgic, they are lamentations to the violence against women and the earth. Patricia Miranda is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, educator, and founder of The Crit Lab, graduate-level critique seminars and Residency for artists, and MAPSpace project space. She has been Visiting Artist at Vermont Studio Center, the Heckscher Museum, and University of Utah; and been awarded residencies at I-Park, Weir Farm, Vermont Studio Center, and Julio Valdez Printmaking Studio. She received an Anonymous Was a Woman Covid19 Artist Relief Grant, an artist grant from ArtsWestchester/New York State Council on the Arts, and was part of a year-long NEA grant working with homeless youth. Miranda currently teaches graduate curatorial studies at Western Colorado University, and develops programs for K-12, museums, and institutions such as Franklin Furnace. Her work has been exhibited at ODETTA, NYC; ABC No Rio, NYC; Alexey von...

Jo Yarrington has always been interested in chance and the found {moment, object, person}. How random experiences click in to place, form a narrative, reveal a truth. All the work ...

Jo Yarrington has always been interested in chance and the found {moment, object, person}. How random experiences click in to place, form a narrative, reveal a truth. All the work ...

Jo Yarrington has always been interested in chance and the found {moment, object, person}. How random experiences click in to place, form a narrative, reveal a truth. All the work ...

Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of paintings and sculptures that have been created since the spring of 2014. Using domestic construction materials from her garage, extras from home improvement projects or the garden, have been captured, much like a photogram, but with paint, not silver. By blending photography and painting, Fagan finds that the patterns created with industrial, mass-produced objects around the house and garage, speak to her interest in producing paintings that link to sound. These works are portraits of the artist’s home, its history, and the materials used to build that maintain her home. Ellen Hackl Fagan builds connections between color and sound using installations, interactive games, and collaborative projects that combine color-and-texture saturated paintings with music...

"Floor Phobic" is an original oil pastel drawing by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece lower right as well as signing & dating it on the back. This piece depicts a gree...

"Burn Scar (No. 2)" exemplifies Filice's unique approach, combining ink, paper, branches, bark, and stucco on canvas to create a textured, tactile piece that invites deep contemplati...

The freestanding sculptures in this portfolio are made from the “sticks”: a pile of found wood that Sweibel has been pulling from to make new works since about 2002. The pile consisted of more than a dozen four- to seven-foot lengths of hardwood, each an uneven inch in depth and width. The sticks were warped, with worn yellow paint on one side and raw wood on the other three. Over the years she has painted the raw sides of the sticks, cut the wood into shorter lengths, and sliced paint off – and kept the residue from these actions. Sweibel has also made sculptures ranging from full-length sticks to tiny stick splinters. She built these sculptures using sliced-off paint. Timeworn materials and objects have an intelligence that the artist looks for and listens to. Shaping and reshaping material to find new form and elicit new insights in the material itself is the territory she is mining. The limitations of the process are its strengths. Her work is concerned with fragility, precariousness, adaptability, and strength. It is a visual response to powerful yet unseen forces - like wind and thoughts - that threaten, propel, ruin, and protect. Liz Sweibel is a multidisciplinary artist working in drawing, sculpture, installation, and digital photography and video. Her spare, personal language of abstraction transforms ordinary materials into statements about connectedness and responsibility: every action has an impact, the effects persist in space and over time, and we are accountable. By drawing attention to simple, ordinary “stuff of life” and referencing both shared and personal history, Sweibel’s work explores and reflects back fundamental experiences in response to our world and relationships. Her intention is to reinvigorate viewers’ awareness of the everyday – in its raw beauty and precariousness – in hopes that they might bring heightened senses of sight and care to their daily lives. Sweibel has participated in solo, two-person, and group exhibits in New York, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Michigan, and Tennessee since 1998. In 2016, Sweibel’s work was in the group shows Lightly Structured at Sculpture Space NYC, Precarious Constructs at the Venus Knitting Art...

Schwartz received a degree in fine art from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia, and later studied sculpture at Columbia University. Her work has been shown in...

Katie Yaquinto says of her work… My practice is rooted in identity and transformation. Working primarily with found and repurposed textiles, I assemble fragments into large, patchwo...

Katie Yaquinto says of her work… My practice is rooted in identity and transformation. Working primarily with found and repurposed textiles, I assemble fragments into large, patchwo...

"Shop" James Bassler, brown paper Trader Joe's shopping bags, cut and twisted, with yellow and red waxed linen thread, 16" x 11" x 5", 2009. "Shop", by ...

Katie Yaquinto says of her work… My practice is rooted in identity and transformation. Working primarily with found and repurposed textiles, I assemble fragments into large, patchwo...

"Ulsto" is an original oil pastel drawing on grocery bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece on the back. This piece features abstract color fields but also depicts an ab...

Sharon Brooks, the imaginative creator of the mixed media assemblage sculpture "Too Much Tea," describes it as a whimsical and delightful artwork. The centerpiece of this piece is a silver tray, cleverly supported by pounded silver cones that securely hold a wooden plate in place through drilled holes. This arrangement not only provides stability but also adds a touch of resilience to the sculpture. In her creative manipulation, Brooks has added a playful twist by incorporating the head of a doll sitting atop a teapot. It appears as if the doll is emerging from the teapot, with her arms playfully sticking out of the snout. This unique concept adds a sense of charm and intrigue to the artwork, reinventing the traditional tea-serving experience. The sculpture is further enhanced by the presence of multiple trays...

Jo Yarrington’s photographs, prints, works on paper, glass sculptures and architecturally-based installations have been shown in exhibitions at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Yale University, Cornell University, the Museum of Glass, the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Artists Space, St. John the Divine Cathedral, Grounds for Sculpture, the Museum of American Glass and ODETTA, among others. International exhibitions have included Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow Cathedral, Glasgow University, Galeria Sala Uno and Centro de las Artes de Guanajuato. She represented the United States at the Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates and participated in the Berlin Biennial. in 2010 she received the Bronze Prize, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, Macedonia. Yarrington is a recipient of artist grants and Fellowships from the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. She has received Residency Fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Museum of Glass, the Museum of American Glass, the Bridge Virtual Residency/ SciArt Center, the Lucile Walton Fellow/Mountain Lake Biological Station, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Anderson Center and the Ucross Foundation, among others. International grants and fellowships have included the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity/Canada, SIMS Residency/ Iceland, Cill Rialaig Artists Residency/Ireland, the Burren College of Art Residency/Ireland and the American Scandinavian Foundation. She is a Professor of Visual and Performing Arts at Fairfield University and lives and works in New York City. STATEMENT In site-specific exhibitions, public art commissions, collaborative and individual projects Jo Yarrington has used varied combinations of glass, waxed surfaces, found artifacts and experimental analog photography to investigate the way we perceive – searching for, experimenting with and developing throughout a sensory-based vernacular. Her mostly translucent materials function as physical framework and symbolic membrane. Light, both natural and ambient, provides a kinetic or time-based element to her work. Scale and the integration of architecture are also pivotal components. In the 6-part installation for the two-person exhibition Illuminated, Yarrington continues her interest in the connections between vision, sound and language. In Mute-ability: Compositions 1 – 6, her title for this light-based comprehensive work, she combines the words mute and malleability. The work focuses on found piano rolls, a music storage medium, originally conceived as coded notations or ‘note control data’ for music produced in pneumatic player pianos...

"Cradle to Cradle" apple, commercial wood, screws, 16" x 30" x 30", 2007. This mixed media sculptural vessel was done by San Francisco-based artist, Gyöngy Laky...

Schwartz received a degree in fine art from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia, and later studied sculpture at Columbia University. Her work has been shown in...

Schwartz received a degree in fine art from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia, and later studied sculpture at Columbia University. Her work has been shown in...

Schwartz received a degree in fine art from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia, and later studied sculpture at Columbia University. Her work has been shown in...

Schwartz received a degree in fine art from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia, and later studied sculpture at Columbia University. Her work has been shown in...

Based in Chicago, IL, contemporary artist Michael Thompson creates unique kites, collages and mixed media works assembled from material fragments of past and present collected in his travels. In his ongoing series of memory jugs, Thompson adorns stoneware vessels with a kaleidoscope of ceramic shards, found objects, and pocket-sized trinkets he collected over the course of his life. Also known as forget-me-not jugs or spirit jars, memory jugs are African American folk art objects that honor a loved one who has recently passed. Small tokens and mementos of the deceased are gathered and affixed to the exterior of a jug or vase, an abundance of memories that celebrates a life lived to the fullest. Michael Thompson applies this tradition to his own practice, creating tactile assemblages of this and that. Formed in the manner of collage, each jug honors the lost memories of generations past and his own memories of personally discovering each item. With varied sources for materials including Kyoto, Turkey, and Mexico, a great number of the found shards are 18th and 19th century ceramics...

"Twelve Miles To Go" is an original oil pastel drawing on a grocery bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece lower right. This piece features a lone figure walking through...

This installation imagines the Radium Girls as abstractd subjects. Repeating a motif of a circle, signifying the mouth, this art object conveys a modern view of the these workers, tied in with repetitive actions in abstracted patterns. Radioluminescence is the phenomenon by which light is produced in a material by bombardment with ionizing radiation and can be used as a low-level light source for night illumination of instrument...

Radioluminescence is the phenomenon by which light is produced in a material by bombardment with ionizing radiation and can be used as a low-level light source for night illumination of instruments or signage or other applications where light must be produced for long periods without external energy sources. Radioluminescent paint used to be used for clock hands and instrument dials...

Liz Sweibel primarily makes sculpture, installations, and drawings. She uses a spare, personal language of abstraction to explore liminal spaces and unseen forces: wind, history, va...

Liz Sweibel primarily makes sculpture, installations, and drawings. She uses a spare, personal language of abstraction to explore liminal spaces and unseen forces: wind, history, va...

"Oncoming Dawn" is an original oil pastel drawing on a grocery bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece lower right. It features a mostly barren landscape with three trees...

This flat file installation is a kind of Wunderkammer – a Cabinet of Wonder or Curiosity containing a small idiosyncratic collection of select wonders and oddities of the natural wor...

Kathleen Vance explores environmental issues such as water conservation and protection through positive stewardship of the land. She looks to convey an appreciation of nature and tra...

Jane Sangerman lives and works in New York City. She received her BFA from the University of New Mexico and her MFA from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has had on...

Jane Sangerman lives and works in New York City. She received her BFA from the University of New Mexico and her MFA from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has had on...

Jane Sangerman lives and works in New York City. She received her BFA from the University of New Mexico and her MFA from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has had one ...