KALEIDOSCOPE - Recent Works by Lindsey Claire Newman

Crooked Tree Art Center; Petoskey, MI | January 14 - February 26, 2023

Artists’ Statement:

This exhibition celebrates a shift in my creative process catalyzed by my surrender to the presence of my children within my work. It began as a daily devotion to my studio practice during my first months of being a mother-of-two. This series of over one hundred small collages directly reflects my experience as it became slightly obsessive as I grasped for studio time and solitude, and more importantly, fun, which children inherently infuse into everything.

Small children approach making in a way that is often futile beyond its creation. In repeated observance of this act, this work came through me in the same spirit that fuels making robot sculptures out of the recycling bin and smashing freshly completed sandcastles. Collage, which resurfaced for me as a preferred medium in early 2020, provides an enticing framework in which I enjoy the tactile act of breaking down and building up materials. The acts of creation and destruction have always been inextricably linked and since my first moments of Motherhood I have found it to be the basis of everything.

At its core, my artwork is process based and evolutionary, employing intuition and memory, chance and delight. I explore human relationships and connections within a larger context of metaphysics and cosmology, most recently regarding my concurrent roles as both mother and daughter. With my art, I bend the boundaries of my own lifetime and distill my singular perception into a universal expression of human experience. All of life becomes folded into my creative practice. That is the goal and somehow, the reoccurring surprise.

All works:

Mixed Media Collage, 1” x 1” - 4” x 4”, 2021-2022.