Peter Dellert Three Truths

November 27 - December 11
Reception: Sunday, December 2, 2 pm - 4 pm

In this exhibition Dellert will present new work in an ongoing series of collages that use found rusted metal sheets, oil drum lids and other man-made objects as surfaces for his art while showing how Nature has acted on them over time. He sees this rusting, and decomposition as a form of art, orchestrated by Nature on man-made artifacts. One realizes that Nature would use its own creative processes to remake all human artifacts if given the time. Reversing the process, he collects natural materials such as leaves, flower petals, onion skin, garlic skin and wasp nest which he deconstructs and reassembles into tiny squares and strips to form a pixelated imagery, often in human imposed geometric forms. These unique collages thus show that the process of creation is often similar for nature and man, although the pace and the resultant forms quite different. Given this, he poses a deeper question about the balance between these unquestionably creative yet destructive processes.

Peter Dellert Bio:
Peter Dellert is a furniture maker, sculptor and collage artist living and working in Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA. Inspired by nature and biomorphic forms, his sculptures are made from such diverse materials as tin cans, tree branches, steel rebar, stainless steel, carved Spanish cedar, concrete, and found recycled automotive catalytic converter covers. He has shown widely in the United States in both museums and galleries and his work has been included in many publications and books. His collages use many natural materials such as leaves, tree bark, flower petals, onion and garlic skin, wasp nest as well as text and maps from vintage atlases, vintage sheet music combined with Japanese and other papers, and found materials. He combines these materials into minimalist statements, often with an ecological backstory, using varied substrates from found painted wood, rusted metal sheets, tea bag covered or painted plywood, and most recently images he has taken in Japan and laser printed on washi.