Kristin Woodbury and Sara-Lou Klein

Next Gallery

May 9 - May 25, 2008

Opening Reception: Friday May 9, 2008 from 6:00 - 10:00 pm

Kristen Woodbury at Next

Pulp Friction: “Balls” Exhibit Explores Disposable Culture

Eleanor Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, Malcom X, Elvis, Sigmund Freud and a host of other faces meet and greet as their images peek out from balls of handmade paper in a strange fashion that meets somewhere between comical and poignant. Paris Hilton shares space with Anne Frank. Titles like “Cheeseballs” and “Blue Balls” leave no guesswork about the tongue-in-cheek observations Woodbury makes about pop culture.

The exhibit explores the idea of disposable culture.

“I feel like we live in a world where the media seems absolutely all-powerful in its ability to make and create what we think of as important,” says Woodbury. “I find it very bizarre that most of us Americans readily recognize Britney Spears or Paris Hilton but couldn’t identify Rosa Parks or Anne Frank. The media moves at such a lightning speed that today’s hype becomes forgotten information in a manner of days or weeks.”

Woodbury is a mixed media artist whose exhibit, Balls opens May 9th at NEXT Gallery in the Navajo Arts District. The show runs through May 25.

Patricia Branstead, artist, papermaker and owner of KOZO Fine Art Materials has shown Woodbury's work in her space. "Kristin's innovative paper work speaks loudly as its own structural medium," says Branstead." She makes the surfaces of the paper somewhat irrelevant, favoring instead the tension created by the edges and creases. She uses the edges as a nesting place for the collaged real-world elements,” says Branstead.

Woodbury makes the paper using poured techniques, working free form in oversized water tables. The pulp is ground from cotton linter or recycled paper, then dyed and poured on to various screens or fabric. Each paper component is meticulously coated with many layers of acrylic to protect the work. The piece titled “Black and White and Read All Over,” features nearly a hundred strips of black, gray or red handmade paper all set on-end in the frame so that the viewer sees hundreds of cockled edges of paper interspersed with scraps from news magazines.

“On a conceptual level, I love the idea of using ephemeral material which is in fact tediously created to explore this idea of disposable culture,” says Woodbury. “On a practical note, I wanted to create something that shows the remarkable potential that handmade paper has to do or be whatever you want it to be.”

Sara-Lou Klein

In my art I transform past experiences into something light and whimsical. From owls to snakes to trees and flowers, silly scenarios are created to lift the heart. I use the media of prismacolour pencils on wood or paper, and acrylic paints on stretched or free hanging canvas to explore these imaginary worlds.--Sara-Lou Klein 2008