Kat Flyn

The Wall

2018

This takes dead aim at how being Black in our culture is a very dangerous game. The imagery is of an old arcade shooting gallery. Throughout the 1800s, right up until the 1960s, carnival games...

SKYLAR FEIN was born in Greenwich Village and raised in the Bronx. He has had many careers including teaching nonviolent resistance under the umbrella of the Quakers, working for a g...

The election of Donald Trump placed a spotlight on lower-class white families. This work lampoons the stereotypes we often have of those families. The piece is intentionally whimsical. The point is that until we see beyond superficial (and misleading) stereotypes, we have little hope of making any progress toward solving issues related to this, or any, class of individuals. --- Kat Flyn is a self-taught assemblage artist working presently out of San Diego. She began her career as a costume designer in Southern California. Over the years she amassed a trove of artifacts and collectables, which she began using to create assemblage art in the 1990's. In 2000 she sold her business and moved to Cuyamaca, a remote community in the mountains outside of San Diego to devote herself exclusively to her artwork. In 2003 her work was interrupted when the Cedar Fire swept through San Diego county and destroyed the forest, her home & studio along with almost all of her collections and works of art. Following the fire she relocated to San Francisco, where she spent a decade concentrating on her art in her studio in SOMA and exhibiting at galleries in the Bay Area. In 2015 she returned to San Diego and now works out of her studio in La Jolla, exhibiting there and in Los Angeles. Kat Flyn refers to herself as an Assemblage Sculptor and her works as Political Art or Protest Art. She separates herself from other assemblage artists in that she only employs “saved” as opposed to “found” objects in her work; and her pieces always have a political or cultural narrative to them rather than being surreal or abstract. She also constructs or refashions many of the pieces which she uses in her art – a soft drink box into a tenement building (Affordable Housing 2017), a jewelry box into a wheelchair (Last Lily Foot 2016), an old shoe shine box into a hearse (Katrina 2018). The result is her work is closer in appearance to Folk Art than Assemblage Art. STATEMENT: Strictly speaking I am an assemblage artist, but in fact I construct more than assemble my works. I search out collectables, artifacts and woodcarvings and then build scenes to make statements regarding American society. Even when using artifacts from earlier centuries, my theme is almost always about contemporary America. Social injustice, racism, sexism, and violence - aspects of our national psyche – exist in the present but have their seeds planted in our past. Additionally, the artifacts I use often are meant to amplify the meaning of the work. For instance, the Black stereotype wood figures I use in many of my pieces were almost certainly crafted by a White person. By using such artifacts I ask: what kind of society produces such items in the first place? In my art I make a strict distinction between found objects and saved objects.. A found object - which most assemblage artists use in their works - is devoid of intrinsic or emotional value, having been discarded by its owner as worthless or broken. A saved object on the other hand has retained value, either because it was intrinsically valuable or because emotional value had been added to it (such as a photograph, an old shoe, a vintage toy) and consequently it was saved rather than discarded. The fact that I only use “saved objects” often results in viewers being attracted to the individual pieces within my works rather than seeing the narrative I am attempting to portray. The pieces on display in this exhibit are from my American Home Series. I have assembled an array of old artifacts, carved figures, and iconic symbols, each spotlighting an aspect of living conditions within our borders; and as is consistent with my art, focus is placed on failings in our social contract – overcrowded tenements, trailer parks...

“Love,” to quote the Beatles, “was all you need.” Looking back, the Hippie subculture, included a high dosage of naiveté. --- Kat Flyn is a self-taught assemblage artist working pr...

Materials: Ralph Lauren button down shirts, aluminum wire, floral tape, wood Artist Statement: Inspired by the bedroom communities of Mid-America, my work examines the conflict between our behavior in our most intimate moments and our desire to appear as ambassadors of a white-picket-fence America. Using materials sourced from the suburban landscape, such as paint chip samples from Home Depot...

Materials: Ralph Lauren button down shirts, aluminum wire, floral tape, wood Artist Statement: Inspired by the bedroom communities of Mid-America, my work examines the conflict betw...

Melange II is an original work by Michael Olsen. The bright and bold colours of the butterflies make this a joyful piece. Olsen’s use of perspex allows for work to fit sleekly into a...

Sculpture made of mixed media, vinyl & crystal glass. Printed artist signature and edition on underside of the feet. From the edition of 888. Original box included. Certificate o...

Mireia Serra creates sensuous bronze and iron sculptures showing the beauty of snapshots caught in life which are full of emotions and feelings along the life journey. Her metal artw...

'I am a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on ecofeminism using fiber and mixed media constructions. My materials include hand-dyed commercially fished line and ghost gear, recycled and antique textiles, fabric printed with cyanotype emulsions and found objects. I change the existing surface of recognizable animals by creating a veneer of unexpected color and imagery. This forces the viewer to consider the shape more carefully by visually exploring its new topography. The creation process can be likened to painting with fiber (that has been tinted with hand-mixed dyes) on a three-dimensional canvas. Intense work is spent creating the eyes and ears to convey the emotion of each animal. I look to the work of Joan Mitchell and The Quilters of Gee’s Bend as inspiration for pattern and color, as well as charts, iconography, and satellite imaging.' -Gin Stone...

Theda Sandiford, is a self-taught mixed media artist based in Jersey City, NJ. Though art is engrained in her psyche, Theda’s first creative endeavors were in the music business as a...

'My Emotional Baggage Carts are vessels to dispose of racial trauma. The act of making, weaves the sting of macro and microaggressions into the cart, freeing me from these constraints. Each recovered shopping cart is unique, but they all are woven with upcycled materials like rope, paracord, grocery bags, rope lights, beads, fabric, and bottle caps. The cart is with a protective zip tie blanket to trap trauma and prevent its escape. For me, my Emotional Baggage Carts are a release, for you, they are an opportunity to look within and recognize any emotional baggage you, yourself may be carrying and release it.' Theda Sandiford...