Tag: repurposed materials

Posted on , by Laurie Gwen Shapiro

At Some Point, Every Household Object Stops Being Innocent

No one ever thinks the plate is going to become a problem.

A plate survives three apartments and one bad Thanksgiving. A suitcase gets hauled across borders or shoved beneath beds; sometimes it is packed in hope, sometimes because someone has no choice. An iron presses school clothes and funeral clothes, then outlives its usefulness and sits in a closet somewhere, still holding the pressure of human hands.

That is the animating idea behind extraORDINARY things, the quietly arresting exhibition at the Flinn Gallery in Greenwich Library.

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Posted on , by Elizabeth Johnson

Carol Diamond in her studio: Go Ahead, Make Me

During a studio visit with Carol Diamond before her upcoming exhibit, Carol Diamond: Go Ahead, Make Me (Equity Gallery), our discussion of her recent sculptures elicits the term “Janus heads”–not because she makes two-headed portraits, but because each dynamic work encapsulates a battle of competing forces that hint at varying degrees of figuration and diverse human backstories. 

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Posted on , by Claire Haik

Art Spiel Picks: Philly Exhibitions in May 2025

HIGHLIGHTS
Katie Hudnall: The Longest Distance between Two Points at the Museum for Art in Wood, installation shot, image courtesy of the gallery

I always love that Earth Day is situated right when the city is exploding with new flowers and life. These spring exhibitions show appreciation for our planet by working with found and repurposed materials, honoring their origins while building something new. At the Museum for Art in Wood, Katie Hudnall constructs delightful and “mechanically improbable” animals and curiosity cabinets of found objects in her show, The Longest Distance between Two Points. Drexel University’s Pearlstein Gallery showcases CONTEMPORARY RUIN future visions, a collection of work that meditates on the realities of decay in our cities, offering both a poetic reflection on our everyday lives and practical approaches toward building a more resilient future. South of the city, Lavett Ballard’s solo show at Rowan University, The People Who Could Fly, features striking mixed-media collages that recast stories of African-American folklore and history using layers of imagery.

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Posted on , by Art Spiel

Travelers, Liars, Thieves at Garrison

Photo Story
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David Packer, Bears that Dance, ceramic with glaze, each 12” high approx, 2024

The three-person show Travelers, Liars, Thieves at Garrison presents the work of artists Margaret Lanzetta, David Packer, and Niki Lederer, who also curated the exhibition. Margaret Lanzetta’s paintings, crafted with acrylic on satin, cotton bedsheets, and sari fabric, explore the fusion of decorative traditions from various cultures, reflecting interconnectedness between cultural and political narratives. Niki Lederer’s artwork, made from repurposed discarded materials such as umbrella canopies and nylon threads, highlights environmental concerns. David Packer’s bear sculptures serve as a metaphor for personal, economic, and political upheavals. Collectively, the three artists re-imagine the world with united boundaries, new environmentalism, and migrating identities.

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Posted on , by Art Spiel

Scaling Nature at the Bronx River Art Center

Art Spiel Photo Story

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Left: Wildriana Paulino, Right: Linda Cunningham. Photo courtesy of Michele Brody

Scaling Nature at the Bronx River Art Center features large-scale mixed-media installation works by three artists: Michele Brody, Linda Cunningham and Wildriana Paulino. Curated by Gail Nathan, the premise of this show is to represent nature as a force of nurture and destruction through the use of materials from the ephemeral to the concrete. Paulino and Brody both work with cast handmade paper that hangs from the gallery ceiling to command the space. Their massive artworks invite the viewer to be engulfed by a feeling of being one with nature and simultaneously wary of the effects of climate change.

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Posted on , by Etty Yaniv

Artists on Coping: Niki Lederer

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.


Goldenrod, 2019, Found re-purposed plastic bottles, machine screws, hex nuts, wire, rebar armature, concrete base. Artist with sculpture currently on view at Wolfs Lane Park as part of Pelham Art Center’s Public Art Program.

Niki Lederer is a sculptor working with found materials including discarded umbrellas and post-consumer plastic. Born in London, Ontario and raised in Vancouver, she received her BFA from the University of Victoria and her MFA from Hunter College in New York City. Group exhibitions include Portal: Governors Island, 50 Years of Public Art in NYC Parks, Central Park and the Outdoor Sculpture Biennial Adelphi University, Garden City, NY. Solo exhibitions include Washington Square Windows, NYU and Preset Tense, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Niki recently collaborated with XAOC Contemporary Ballet for Norte Maar’s CounterPointe8. Currently her re-purposed plastic bottle sculpture is featured at the Pelham Art Center and Wolfs Lane Park and her discarded-umbrella based work will be included in the Wassaic Project 2020 Summer Exhibition. Niki lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

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Posted on , by Etty Yaniv

Artists on Coping: Rachel Klinghoffer

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.


Detail of installation at The Skirt at Ortega y Gasset Projects, March 2020

By repurposing materials, making and remaking them into paintings and sculptures, Klinghoffer prompts a reimagining of uses for these relic-like objects. Articles reflect the artist’s personal connection to femininity, craft-making, Judaism, romance, pushing the definition of painting. Through time, the items become specimens, icons. They are poked, prodded, stained, sprayed, stroked, rubbed, dipped, then pulled, torn, cracked open and broken apart making up and becoming the new work. Rachel Klinghoffer lives and works in South Orange NJ. Recently she has exhibited at Morgan Lehman Gallery and The Skirt at Ortega y Gasset, with a review in The Brooklyn Rail.

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Posted on , by Catherine Kirkpatrick

Artists on Coping: Angelica Bergamini

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

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Angelica Bergamini in her studio

Angelica Bergamini is an Italian born New York-based artist. Interested in the relationship between the personal and collective unconscious, her creation manifests through painting and paper-cuts assemblages, video, and sculptural installations. She has shown in collective and solo shows in New York (C24 Gallery; Tanja Grunert; Ground Floor Gallery; Ivy Brown; White Box; BRIC Arts Media; Photo New York), Los Angeles (Torrance Art Museum), London (Chelsea Space), Paris (Galerie Arnaud Lefebvre), Stockholm (Färgfabriken), Milan (Pari&Dispari), Hong Kong (Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery), Addis Ababa (Addis Video Art Festival). Her latest video was presented at the 55th Pesaro International Film Festival in Italy, in the selection “Best in Short – Contemporary Italian Animation.”

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Posted on , by Etty Yaniv

Artists on Coping: Jeanne Brasile

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

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Jeanne Brasile is an artist, curator, art educator and writer and is also the Director of Seton Hall University’s Walsh Gallery.

Jeanne Brasile is interested in repurposed paper as a medium, especially when its original function is outmoded, and structured to communicate information that is currently transmitted in a digital format. Most recently she has been working with library card catalogues, Braille newspaper pages, vintage dictionaries and newsprint to make wall sculptures on canvas or board. She shreds, cuts, folds, weaves, sews and curls paper – reassembling the pieces to alter the data it once conveyed. Her work has been shown most recently at the Montclair Art Museum, The Pascal Gallery at Ramapo College of New Jersey and the Mattatuck Art Museum.

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