Repsycheled Combobulations

 

  Repsycheled Combobulations 

Bullseye: The Arms Race, by Lou Camerato

Plain Sailing Weather, by Gwen Waight

Circus Pony, by Susan Kurtz

Meristem 4, by Jonah Jacobs

Strombus 3, by Jonah Jacobs

Bigger Boat, by Gwen Waight

By Tom Wachunas

“The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to produce a reality of the same intensity.”  - Alberto Giacometti

“Can works be made which are not 'of art'?”  - Marcel Duchamp

“Found objects, chance creations, ready-mades (mass-produced items promoted into art objects…) abolish the separation between art and life. The commonplace is miraculous if rightly seen.” – Charles Simic

“"Look at everything as though you are seeing it for the first time, with eyes of a child, fresh with wonder." -Joseph Cornell

 EXHIBIT: REPURPOSED, at Malone Art Gallery, 2600 Cleveland Ave. NW. on the Malone University campus, 2^nd floor of Johnson Center/ featured artists: Lou Camerato, Jonah Jacobs, Susan Kurtz, Gwen Waight

 From Malone Gallery exhibit curator, Kat Francis Keomany: “REPURPOSED  showcases a blend of two-dimensional and three-dimensional artworks, delving into the creative possibilities that arise from discarded items. This exhibition revitalizes forgotten objects and overlooked materials, transforming them into something extraordinary.”

    Word nerd here, chronically waylated in saying THANK YOU, both to local artist Kat Francis Keomany for her important work as curator of Malone University Gallery, and to the remarkable artists she consistently brings to our attention. The exhibits there have been, and continue to be, a dynamic enrichment of Canton’s art gallery milieu. And that would certainly include the recently ended exhibit, REPURPOSED. It was a thoughtful and tantalizing show of what I’ll very loosely call portmanteaux. (Just so you know, portmanteau (pȯrt-ˈman-(ˌ)tō) - a word or part of a word made by combining the spellings and meanings of two or more other words or word parts (such as smog from smoke and fog); a collection of variable aspects packed together (as in a suitcase), combining more than one element, use, or quality; or, an unlikely composite.)

    So simple, so complex, how art can both tease and perplex. Sometimes with mere knick-knacks, trinkets, toys or bric-a-bracs. Thoughtful and tantalizing, this particular exhibit was a genuine seriosity of curiosities – symbolicons, if you will -  all of which thoroughly revitalized my own appreciation of so-called found object assemblage art (a practice, btw, I often engage in my own work).

   Here was a zany miscellany of physical ingredients and nostalgic mementos. Where the commonplace acquired new breathing space. Where personal reflections invited deeper inspections. Art is where the oft-understated can get well-reinflated. Where memories and material things, maybe once lost or tossed, can be found and rebound, juxtaposed to justsuppose. Resurrections and reconnections. What the heck, hunt and peck. Guard the discarded. The artists in this show opened their suitcases to more than simply tarry in the ordinary. Their transmutations of everyday fluff made for some truly fascinating stuff.