Ren Geertsen

Ren is a mixed media artist living in Talpa, NM. Her studio is cluttered with collections of bottle caps, keys, corks, plastic lids, and trays of collected paper. Her art redefines these found materials and reveals the excess of waste in our daily lives. It is both anti-consumerism and needs consumerism to exist. It reveals that we have enough and is a practice in finding beauty in often discarded objects.

Ren's works are intricately fashioned with time consuming patience. She worked on her "pop tab dress" daily, for over four months, taking it around with her, like a knitting project, wherever she went. It is made of over 5500 tabs, 3000 just in the ruffles alone. She delves into the sculptural, constructing tiny pyramids from soda pop boxes that form a larger piece, the design shifting as the viewer moves from side to side. She delves into the functional with her resin tabletops, each featuring a unique collection of bottle caps or trinkets, or in one particular case, $18.49 in pennies, their varying shades being utilized to create a pattern.

Ren's collage work is made from collected papers ranging in age from the 1950s to the present, including security envelopes, magazine pages, and greeting cards. These works are made from tens, sometimes hundreds of small paper tiles, all cut out by hand with scissors. Some works are built of just a single layer of tiles, and other works are layered, creating depth and dimension.