Christy Puetz and Ingrid Restemayer have been collaborating and exhibiting together for more than two decades. The artists were classmates at the University of North Dakota where they studied Fiberarts in the 90s. Both continue to work in fiber alongside mixed media, and both focus on the natural world — Puetz creates mixed media sculptures of animal hybrids, and Restemayer creates animal etchings on handmade paper adorned with embroidery. Their joint exhibition Delicate Beasts will open in the Craddock-Terry Gallery with an artist talk by Restemayer on First Friday, September 4th. Delicate Beasts will remain on view through October 23rd.
Christy Puetz – My breathless zoo of hybrid animal forms play with the illusion of real or unnatural, cute or creepy, odd or unnoticed, and ideals of beautiful or ugly.
My current work explores the emotional toll that physical distance can have on a relationship between two people and the feelings of vulnerability that can result. Many of the creatures have their throats accentuated with glass seed beads and sequins to emphasize the sensuality and vulnerability of that part of the body. They hold poses that make them appear to be frozen in time, waiting for onlookers to exit so they can secretly breathe and move around in the shadows subconscious.
Ingrid Restemayer – The etchings themselves are intimate studies of individual animals. I explore not the textbook form of the species, but rather the expressions conveyed by their organic movements captured in a still, illustrated moment of individual personality. The images are small. Their size dictated by the etched substrate – discarded retail gift cards. All the better though, to get up-close and personal with the sometimes mammoth beasts that I portraitize.
At times the work has a hint of storytelling with the use of my intaglio images as pseudo-illustrations for a kind of narrative when paired with code-like paragraph shapes formed from the hand-embroidery.
Click here to learn more about Christy Puetz and her art.
Click here to learn more about Ingrid Restemayer and her art.