CollageUNCONTAINED... in NYC!
At La MaMa - Galleria, January 24 to February 8, 2014

A Collage Collective’s exhibition featuring an array of more than 120 collages and mixed media creations by artists Veronique Lerebours, Helene Berson, Lauren Blankstein, Anne Hammel, Deirdre Mackenzie, Bernice Rubin and Elizabeth Velazquez.

OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY JANUARY 24, 6PM TO 9PM

Seven women cut, rip, shred, glue, stitch, tape and pin two and three dimensional pieces. They’ve been upcycling and recycling, hunting and gathering, scavenging and hoarding alone and together since meeting in a weekly art class in Manhattan three years ago. The results: diverse, colorful, exciting, thought provoking and thoughtful expressions ripped from today’s headlines and their deepest desires!

How fitting that La Mama, the east village institution that has supported emerging artists for five decades, is hosting their first group exhibition!

La Mama - La Galleria
6 East 1st Street (2 Ave/Bowery), New York, NY 10003
http://lamama.org/lagalleria/uncontained/ - 212.475.7710

For more information, contact Veronique Lerebours: veronique@kissous.me

Gallery hours: From 1pm - 7:30pm, Wednesday – Sunday
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About the artists:

Helene Berson’s work addresses family, the passing of people and time, historical architecture and the complexity of her relationship with women. She considers collage the “art” of cultural anthropology. Color and perspective are two formal elements she finds particularly engaging. She frequently uses found and discarded materials often picked up on her daily bicycle rides around the city. To date she has completed several collage series: Biollage: small scale works on canvas exploring her own family history; The Shredded Sixties: strategically ripped and torn copies of advertisements reflecting the ’60’s cultural history; Discarded Walls: vintage wallpaper samples become the background and flavor of these works; Painted Papers: acrylic paints create a palette on repurposed papers that are then torn and reformed into imaginary landscapes and settings; Worlds Inside Shoes: cardboard shoe inserts become the foundation for visual exploration of ideas as disparate as Tibetan Buddhism and bling. She has been studying art and making collages since 2005.

Discovering her creativity through collage has given Lauren Blankstein a window into a part of herself that she never knew. As she explores collage using various techniques and inspiring materials she is learning about her own potential. She is fascinated by the magic of the creative sub-conscious and how it reveals itself when she works. She sees the collage-making process as a metaphor to life – it is about chance and trusting ones impulses and intuition. She approaches her art with a certain fearlessness and confidence that, at times, is contrary to how she approaches life.
Lauren’s earlier works reference family, home and history. With her daughter’s drawings, old recipes, family photos and keepsakes from her grandparents she uses pieces of her life to create new worlds with surprising elements. More recently she has been exploring the abstract and creating small, bold, colorful compositions using torn and cut strips of paper and integrating other materials such as, plastic and rubber. She returned to her interest in interior spaces, seeing the subject matter through a different lens. These newer worlds are familiar yet disorienting. The unusual, sometimes jarring, perspectives and bold use of color draw the viewer into curious rooms.

For three decades Anne Hammel made dances and performance art. Her work evolved to become "collagist"- having set and improvised parts, slides, live music, costumes and props and contained both abstract and "real" elements. So when she went to an informal collage group at Pace Wildenstein Editions one Saturday afternoon about seven years ago she already had a lot of experience creating dynamic forms and working in multi-media.

Veronique Lerebours’ nomadic world travels and her passion for art, sacred music and street photography influenced her meditative and spiritual exploration of various projects also reflected in her collage making. This French collagist creates stylized and colorful pieces, blending different and luminous material from places she’s been with her dreams and her passions like India or Africa. Veronique uses natural pigments, watercolor and acrylic, incorporating also her own photography; all of which she melds together to project her musical thoughts, meaningful and sacred messages into each distinctly beautiful and organic creations. Veronique is especially captivated by the lights, colors and mysterious scenes of Brooklyn, NY, her home.
"Born of a Spanish mother and a Parisian father, raised in Angola, Tunisia, France and USA, I am a soul of few worlds.... I can’t remember a time when art was not in my life and I have always been fascinated and intrigued by how it affects us and our social structures as global citizens". www.Kissous.me

Deirdre MacKenzie returned to making art after a hiatus of some twenty-five years during which she was a practicing social worker. For Deirdre, collage making is about seeing and understanding the world in a new and different way. Her muted palette evokes a sense of tranquility, while the overall composition, the interplay of color, shape and texture, often results in an eerie, mysterious disquiet.
"I love working with newspaper because it has so many interesting colors and shapes and always produces a surprise. I was first drawn to making collages using newspaper because it is an abundant source of free material in New York City. Working with newspaper encourages me to explore new ideas and techniques, and to incorporate the human element, such as smudges and wrinkles in my collages. Newspaper allows me to create something precious out of something commonplace".

Bernice Rubin
Born in 1950 in Topeka, Kansas. Grew up in Rochester, New York in a two-parent household with three brothers.
Interests:
Power, hierarchy and place
Women and their role in family, house and world
Anthropology and spirituality
Collage, assemblage and quilting
"I like to try for a contained chaos. The forces guiding the work are the energy and light. This is achieved through composition, ephemera and glitter".

Elizabeth Velazquez‘s love of music, fashion and photography has been a natural progression to the art of collage where she is finding her own voice. Using images from nature, architecture, fashion and dance, she creates bold images that are familiar and unsettling, revealing discomforting truths that lie underneath. Her meditation practice has led her to explore themes of longing, loss and impermanence in her work. Destroying inherently beautiful images has given her faith in the random nature of the artistic process to allow other images to emerge. The accidental and changing nature of collage lends itself to connections, discovery and surprise. This is a belief that she applies to her everyday life and one that she is delighted to have found in her work. Elizabeth was born in Bridgeport, CT, spent her formative years in Beverly Hills, California and has lived in New York City for the last 20 years. She is currently plotting her next move to Hawaii.

About La Mama:
Ellen Stewart founded La MaMa in 1961 in a tiny basement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. She dedicated it to the playwright and all aspects of the theater. Today, La MaMa is a world-renowned cultural institution recognized as the seedbed of new work by artists of all nations and cultures.