RE:ASSEMBLED

From MixHause Gallery:

“RE:ASSEMBLED celebrates the virtues of human imagination and reinvention. The exhibit features the work of Karen Freeman and John Self—two Kerrville artists who gather objects and ephemera with histories serving specific functions and reassemble them into works of art mostly unrelated to their former utility. Both artists are informed by their respective careers of building imaginative environments and objects.

Karen Freeman’s career in architectural design can be seen expressed in her mixed media paintings. She incorporates collaged elements in her expressive paintings into which a visual architectural grid is woven, much like the timeless quality of a village that has evolved over years. She lives in Kerrville, works out of her studio inside Kerr Arts & Cultural Center, and is informed by her years living in NYC where she worked in Store Design for Calvin Klein, Armani Exchange, and Donna Karan.

John Self is a self-professed fun maker. He takes the detritus of bygone eras—old vacuum cleaners, broken steamer baskets, can openers, bits of electrical wire, electronics. These are things that once served practical, sometimes obsolete, functions, and he reassembles them into playful sculptures whose primary aim is to delight and amuse. His background as in-house artist and display builder for Sound Warehouse set him on this path early. John works out of his garage studio where he uses exceptional craftwork and a large dose of humor in his assemblages.

These two bodies of work occupy a common space that elicits wonder and imagination in the viewer. RE:ASSEMBLED invites us to take what we gather along our journeys, the leftover bits that may even seem obsolete, to be curious and see them in new ways, to reimagine and reassemble them into something that brings forth delight.”