Local artist gets showing in Pennsylvania
The work of local artist Hope Kroll is being featured in an exhibition opening this Friday in Pennsylvania. The show, Metamorphic, runs July 11 through Aug. 2 at the Converge Gallery in Williamsport, PA.
Kroll’s current body of work can best be described as cut paper collage. As an avid bibliophile, Kroll has largely used as her source material second-hand hardcover books ranging mostly from the early 1900′s through the 1950′s.
What she looks for in these books are both the blank pages, which are often used as her canvases as well as the images contained therein. The subjects and themes of these images vary widely from antiquated scientific instruments and obsolete machinery to physical deformities and outdated medical and surgical procedures.
Entomological and botanical imagery also plays an important role as do birds, which as a re-occurring theme in her work, play the part of spiritual messengers.
Metamorphic is being curated by Kasey Lyon and includes works by Kroll and other artists. “The metamorphic quality of the work in this exhibition urges us to recall these reclaimed materials in their original context,” according to a press release from the gallery.
“Shifted from their intended state, these works include found objects and every day materials intertwined with postmodern artistic concerns, thus given a new purpose. As we evaluate and question the role of these objects within their new environment we are engaged with a contemporary philosophical dialogue. We find ourselves traveling through a new visual landscape challenging ones experience with each object and finally bringing us to a unique perspective on what was once familiar.”