Rekindle
Providence, RI - Periphery Space @ Paper Nautilus is pleased to present Rekindle featuring select works by Kristin Sollenberger, Daniel Stupar and their daughter Amick Sollenberger.
It seems fitting to talk about rekindling these days: a new year, a new president, new vaccines, the potential for a return to normal. While we isolate, there is a natural desire to take stock of the objects that surround us, to look at them afresh, and, if possible, imbue them with new energy. For these three artists, taking something apart, and exploring new possibilities is part of their process.
In this show, each artist has used objects that are taken outside of their original context: a radio, a house, a boat. These objects no longer serve their original purpose and have been transformed into parts of something new, given a new lease on life.
Amick has taken apart an old radio and harvested its capacitors. She then soldered them back together in a geometric arrangement – the precision of the work makes one wonder what would happen if power was applied. Daniel’s architectural fragments have been cut and arranged – the result is reminiscent of architectural blueprints or industrial patterns - the two round disks in his piece once in a blue moon a green moon recall the half-sphere registration marks for a mold. Kristin has ripped the seams out of two life preservers and sewed them onto an old sheet to create a painterly abstraction.
This shared approach has led to three very different outcomes, yet the questions they raise are similar, the energy they radiate complementary. In each, a fair amount of rescuing has taken place; things have been saved from the trash heap, the sidewalk, the yard sale with the belief that they can surely be rekindled into something else.
If this show had a subtitle it could be Assemblage by a Family. It's not that common for an entire family to enjoy making things and to share an aesthetic.
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Since 1996 Kristin Sollenberger has owned and operated Paper Nautilus (formerly Myopic Books), a secondhand bookshop in Wayland Square on the East Side of Providence. She currently lives with her husband, fellow artist Daniel Stupar, and daughter in South Kingstown, Rhode Island.
Kristin Sollenberger
Safe, 2021
life vests, ribbon & fabric, 60” x 54”, Price upon request
Daniel Stupar
Once in a blue moon a green moon, 2015
Salvaged wood, 28” x 31”, Price upon request
Daniel Stupar
Duplex, 2015
Salvaged wood, 44” x 31.5”, Price upon request
Amick Sollenberger
Untitled, 2020
Capacitors & solder, 8.5” x 7”, NFS