A collage made of buttons, predominately of orange shades, spelling out the word "up" in a broad Goudy-style font hand sewn on purple sail cloth. 

Button Up #1

An image of a golden goddess with white bird wings surrounded by white fur, above inset mirror with draped with golden beads.

Holy See

Pastel and Watercolor Sketch of a Small Child Wearing Cookie Monster  Pajamas Standing At A Window With An Image of a British Soldier in a Gas Mask Outside.

Small Child Wearing Mask At Window

The image is based on a photograph of my elderly mother.  I've added a textural background with collaged paper and floral fabric elements to the square artwork.  

Mumsy

A miniature pastel bathroom scene sits in a shadow box with a mini pink toilet, sitting on checkerboard tile, with a pastel purple toilet matt.  There is a mirror above the sink with a written sign saying "you can do this!!!"  The sink counter has a miniature soap and hand towel.  There is a shelf above the toilet with mini bathroom items such as toilet paper, a tooth brush and bath towels, all in pastel tones.  Next door to the bathroom is a living room with two pastel purple couches sitting around a baby blue coffee table that has an overflowing miniature ash tray and a house plant.  The couches are facing a pink tv that is sitting on a white modern TV stand.  There is a framed large painting on the wall that features abstract faces, checkerboard patterns, and a backround of warmer tones.  All of the furniture sits on a baby pink felt rug.  There is a decorative abstract lamp in the corner.

Dispraportionate Worry 

A collage representing a small aspect of the year 2020 in a whole so far, including references to COVID-19, police brutality, racial injustice, a declining economy, and a failed presidency. 

It's Fun Being Number One

Mixed Media Collage of 1950's hollywood type sitting atop a circular ViewMaster reel Titles Move Stars, Hollywood. Space like circles balance out the area

Starlet

This is a collage was from a series on that began with carefully dried daisy petals, which were tricky to work with and glue down onto the Color-aid paper. The background is a an Epson archival inkjet printed digital pattern drawn in Adobe Illustrator. A postage stamp and other papers were chosen to complement the color palette and content, and the text (species name) was typewritten on Rives BFK paper.  

Ox-eye Daisy

I approach the collage as a painting not a mere assembly of pictures.  As I collect materials, they seem to connect individually or in groups. I begin to see the materials interact as I arrange colors and shapes, and discovering the form and the space created between them. Each added element will build on the previous one by changing, adding, or even result in eliminating the other components which many times were the original motivating pieces. You must allow the work to evolve and transform until the work seems to emerge from the complex contradictions or similitude, and multiplicity of the forms, edges, textures, shapes, space and even unrelated content. 

They Grew Against the Quivering Light

An imagined mountain valley at night with a winding river lit by the glowing full moon above, wisps of clouds among the distant peaks, framed by a steep cliff nearby.

A Midnight Moon

A painting of a boathouse and rowboat on a lake in dark warm colors of Fall on crumpled paper with the words Places Form Us scattered about in metallic gold.
 

Places Form Us

A frame made of cardboard and knick knacks painted black with an icon-like image of my late grandmother in the center mounted on velvet and haloed in gold just below the locket she gave me draped over the shrine's frame.

Healing Shrine

Abstract painting consisting of metal and paint.

Rolex

Imagine if someone could paint with hand cut glass.  This is a stained glass mosaic of a handful of bright red peonies, reaching upwards towards sunlight, underneath a stormy iridescent gray sky.  The stems of the flowers are long, flat pieces of glass, as well as some pieces of glass turned on their sides that catch the light just so. 

Peonies After the Storm

A portrait of a middle aged man with a full beard

Blue Man

 this collage has three female faces above a large blue tampax machine.  lots of tampons and  small red squares fill the background.

Her period from 1966 to 2013

A female cardinal contrasted against redacted book pages

in the morning, early

A photo collage using memories from my grandmother’s scrapbook and a photograph I took of the fall colors on the Mississippi River.

Nostalgia 

This is a paper collage with writing. There are two pictures of a man and a woman teaching a disco dance, and between those, a third picture of a young boy skateboarding. The narrative is a true story involving me and both of those things.

True Tales of Youth from the 20th Century

The outline of a hulking figure seated in a landscape turns their head as if disturbed from thought. Black acrylic paint on found white rag, referencing "Giant Seated in a Landscape" an aquatint print attributed to Francisco de Goya c. 1818. Underneath the image, 5 black deflated balloons are pinned to the wall.

Giant

Scanned image of a pink Glossier plastic bubble-wrap case with sliding red sealer.  Inside is a rusted metal razor blade.

relapse prevention

Twelve inch square section of a cut paper collage (cut paper and glue sticks on mat board). 

Ride Off Into the Sunset (detail)

The mixed media canvas illustrates the sheer joy.  possibilities and high hopes for a first born son whose life was cut very short as a very young man.

First Born c. 1953

A collage depicting an eerie cityscape where citizens are housed like cattle on a factory farm. 

2040: High Density II

"Encountering the Others examines how Oligarchs utilize energy to govern control over indigenous cultures. With this growth of civilization comes unexpected behaviors and new challenges such as environmental issues, tolerance and acceptance, as well as the intrusion of strangers instilling their beliefs which they perceive to be better than others." 

Encountering the Others

An altered book opened to reveal a lighted lamppost on a hill of snow beyond miniature pines and a section of wardrobe.

Spare Oom Secret

A mixed-medium portrait of local drag queen, Mexica Xadows, surrounded by dahlias, Mexico's national flower, which both depicts Mexica's pride in their Mexican culture, and to juxtapose the powerful pose and dress of Mexica. This is part of a series of portraits of local drag queens. 

Portrait of Mexica Xadows

Paper Collage, Envelope Art: Turquoise blue horizontal business envelope. Black and white paper life insurance junk mail creates horizon, Small red "V" shape atop. Blue as sky. White as ground. Red as Butterfly. A bright, simple statement.

Hello Butterfly

An abstract painting - two pieces of a dismembered shank bone, wired into a wooden panel, one of which has inserted into it a feather.  The panel carries sgraffiti, of which can be read "BEASTS."  It is painted in black, a bit of bright red and blue teal, the colored pencil scribbles are white, lime green and forest green

Beasts, Bone and Feather

A collage on handmade beige thick paper including various papers with handstitched title and the word "stitch" on small rectangles in pink, rose, white, rust brown, plus vintage newsprint hexagons of various typefaces & cartoon images, with random looping thread adding dimensionality.

Button Up #1, 2020

Barbara Jean Gurstelle