Art work by Ingrid Restemayer & Christy Puetz
In an exciting collaboration, artists Ingrid Restemayer and Christy Puetz explore issues of implied symbolism and identity in the exhibition, "Shapeshifters". Through the interaction of Ingrid’s mixed media stitching and Christy’s meticulously beaded sculptural installation, the artists express the human nature to assign meaning and assume roles. Together the work creates a delightfully paradoxical atmosphere alluding to the artists’ experiences of changing from one self to another and adapting to culture and context.
Christy Puetz’s 3-dimensional beaded forms have surfaces covered with colorful, organic patterns. Her current work subtly addresses the issues of the different faces we each put forth given our current surroundings and the eventual effect it has on who we become as a whole -- a conglomeration of parts of different creatures. Beaded taxidermy animal forms are transformed into creatures not yet in existence, but in the process of changing form, color, and purpose.
Ingrid Restemayer’s found-object work consists of recognizable bits as subject matter, in which the objects’ context is changed by being trapped in hand-embroidered environments. Drink swords, pushpins, bits of pop culture and the flotsam of everyday life are transformed in meaning or symbolism when combined with hand-stitching, thereby changing their physical or implied contexts.
