Ren Geertsen
Talpa, NM
Day After Day
Paper From Better Homes and Gardens, March 1956
12" x 12" x 1"
2022
$600
About
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. 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.
Artist Statement
My art consists mostly of reused materials. I’m drawn to reusing because it’s free and inspirational; the objects having had a life, and coming with a voice, in a sense, direct my art, showing me what they are capable of and what limitations they have. Not formally trained as an artist, I did find myself drawn to creating as a child, whether it was with a Spirograph, a Lite-Brite, making floor-sized designs out of pattern blocks, or creating designs on graph paper. Since a young age, my art has contained shape: circles, squares, diamonds and triangles, coming together to create pattern and design. A surprise color combination arises from two papers accidentally ending up next to each other. My art is also fueled by play. Never having a complete design in mind, I start with one piece, then another, and as I gather enough to start playing with, a concept starts to emerge. It can also shift at any point; some pieces get thrown off the canvas and new ones are added, a constant evolution until I can commit to being satisfied enough to glue it down.
