Art by Medium: Found Objects

A 16” x 22” x 3” Magical Realism Acrylic Portrait Painting executed on Wood Panel with Custom Framing and Found Objects by artist Christopher Polentz. A certificate of authenticity w...

An original concrete and found object sculpture by American contemporary artist Jonathan Casey.

The Tibetan dorje, a ritual object in Tibetan Buddhism, symbolizes indestructibility and irresistibility while a crow peeking out from behind the Japanes...

"Senufo (Gbon) Statute of Royalty" is a sculpture by thr Senufo peoples of Gabon. It is wood, mixed fiber, textiles, and cowry shells. 14" x 8" x 3" The...

"Contrast Form" is an original oil pastel on a Safeway grocery bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece lower left as well as signing & dating it on the back. 13" x 11 3...

Exhibited in "Benji Stiles: A Human Day" at Reeves Art + Design. In “A Human Day,” a solo show dedicated to the work of contemporary multidisciplinary artist Benji Stiles, we explor...

This wood statue, used as a fetish, was created by an unknown Bacongo artist in Zaire. The Kongo people (also Bakongo) are a Bantu ethnic group primarily defined as the speakers of K...

Luke Forsyth is a painter and illustrator living and working in Los Angeles, California. Known for a playful approach, Forsyth enjoys working in an array of colors and mediums. He dr...

Luke Forsyth is a painter and illustrator living and working in Los Angeles, California. Known for a playful approach, Forsyth enjoys working in an array of colors and mediums. He dr...

Luke Forsyth is a painter and illustrator living and working in Los Angeles, California. Known for a playful approach, Forsyth enjoys working in an array of colors and mediums. He dr...

Luke Forsyth is a painter and illustrator living and working in Los Angeles, California. Known for a playful approach, Forsyth enjoys working in an array of colors and mediums. He dr...

Ackrill presents to us his humor in "Water Melon." A juicy slice floats gently above a surreal body of water, beneath a blue sky. The composition is centered within a vintage, plasti...

"Concrete Gardens" is a body of work that translates Patrick Burns' deep love of the land and complicated past into richly textured, mixed-media paintings with reverberating, monochr...

"Shop" James Bassler, brown paper Trader Joe's shopping bags, cut and twisted, with yellow and red waxed linen thread, 16" x 11" x 5", 2009. "Shop", by ...

"At Sea between Fossils and Satellites 9" is a textural and elemental abstract painting on canvas. It explores the hybridization of chance-derived color-fields with art deco aestheti...

KAT FLYN is a self-taught assemblage artist working presently out of San Diego. She began her career as a costume designer in Southern California. Over the years she amassed a trove ...

"Rift Valley, Sonde 1" is a textural and elemental abstract painting on canvas. It explores the hybridization of chance-derived color-fields with bas-relief aesthetics. Various techn...

Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture, Marble Base, Brass Rod, Mixed Media, Feathers Since graduating from the University of Colorado in 2010, Pichaske has risen to attention in the art wo...

It is a sign of an unhealthy society when fringe personalities are increasingly found not on the fringe but in its mainstream. They bring with them ignorance, prejudice, and irration...

KX2 is a collaboration combining the strengths of artists and sisters Ruth Avra and Dana Kleinman who create mathematically inspired sculpture merging metal and painting. From a dist...

Jane Skingley b. 1963 Hokusai Covers I, 2025 oil and collage on book cover 28 x 18 cm 11 x 7 1/8 in signed, titled and inscribed on a label attached verso Jane Skingley paints seasc...

"Two Former Loners Now" is an original oil pastel on a grocery bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece lower right. It features two people walking towards the viewer in m...

In the mid 1990s Richard Klein started working with found glass objects, including bottles, drinking glasses, ashtrays, and eyeglasses. Initially, Klein rejected any object with commercial or advertising content, but in 2015 he became fascinated with the promotional content that was screen printed on ashtrays from the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. This period was before smoking was looked at as being primarily a negative habit, and iconic American businesses, including Howard Johnson’s, International House of Pancakes (iHop) and Holiday Inn, all produced promotional ashtrays printed with their graphic identity. By the time Klein became interested in these objects, the businesses had either ceased to exist, or had changed their logos, and many of their signature buildings, which where examples of classic, “Pop” roadside architecture, has been torn down or repurposed. The artist wanted to connect the glass objects with the business’s sites that were still recognizable and spoke of their history, so he began researching where original buildings still stood. Klein then embarked on a series of road trips to photograph these sites with the intention of combining the photographs with the promotional glass objects. This led him to as far south as Maryland and as far north as upstate New York from his home in Connecticut. In the case of Holiday Inn, it wasn’t their buildings, but their iconic illuminated sign that appeared on ashtrays, so he sought out a standing example of the sign he could photograph. As it turned out all had been removed years before from the hotels' properties and the only working example was indoors at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. He did, however, find out that there was one still standing, surprisingly, in Beruit, Lebanon. He found an image of it on the web and used it to make Holiday Inn (Beruit). In 1973 Holiday Inn changed their tagline from “The Nations Innkeeper” to “The World’s Innkeeper” as they expanded overseas, including the Mideast. For the hotel chain it was bad timing: the disastrous Lebanese civil war began in 1975. In the war, the different Lebanese militias involved in the conflict, including the Nasserites, Christian Phalangists, and the Lebanese National Movement engaged in what came to be called “The Battle of the Hotels” where they each occupied a major high-rise hotel in central Beruit. The Phalangists commanded the Holiday Inn, which they used to fire with both light arms and heavier weapons at the militias in neighboring hotels. Klein used the photo of the heavily damaged Holiday Inn sign as I thought it spoke in a curious, offhanded way about American cultural imperialism in juxtaposition with an ashtray that proclaimed Holiday Inn to be “The World’s Innkeeper.” In the work Holiday Inn (Nocturne) the artist utilized a found, 35mm slide of a Holiday Inn sign at night at an unknown location as the basis of the photograph in the work. Richard Klein is a Connecticut-based artist, independent curator and writer. As an artist, he has exhibited widely, including the Neuberger Museum of Art at SUNY Purchase; Caren Golden Fine Art, New York; the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI; Hales Gallery, London; Gavlak Gallery, Palm Beach, FL; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA; James Barron Art, Kent, CT; The Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), Portland, OR; Schoolhouse Gallery, Provincetown, MA; Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, NY; Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY; Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Brattleboro, VT; Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, NY; Exhibit by Alberson Tulsa, OK; Incident Report/Flow Chart Foundation, Hudson, NY; ICEHOUSE Project Space, Sharon, CT; Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Kent, CT and with ODETTA Gallery at the Equity Gallery in New York City.. Reviews of his work have appeared in Two Coats of Paint, Whitehot Magazine, The New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, Art in America, and The New Yorker. In the summer of 2024 he will be the first Artist-In-Residence at Peck Ledge Light...

Peyton Pickenpaugh says of her work… In my work, I explore the hidden histories of women, feminist reinterpretations of myth, and the spiritual resonance of materiality. Through lay...

"Concrete Gardens" is a body of work that translates Patrick Burns' deep love of the land and complicated past into richly textured, mixed-media paintings with reverberating, monochr...

KAT FLYN is a self-taught assemblage artist working presently out of San Diego. She began her career as a costume designer in Southern California. Over the years she amassed a trove ...

Nyasha Mashumba, having been the apprentice of Mark Hilltout, has now carved out a career for himself as artist and designer, utilizing the medium and craft he has mastered over the ...

Anthony Ackrill paints directly onto found objects, seamlessly blending painting and sculpture. In "Relapse" Ackrill depicts a swan in water, humorously smoking a cigarette. Green li...

TONY DAGRADI is an internationally recognized jazz performer, artist, composer, author, and educator. For over three decades he has made his home in New Orleans, performing on tenor ...

"Concrete Gardens" is a body of work that translates Patrick Burns' deep love of the land and complicated past into richly textured, mixed-media paintings with reverberating, monochr...

Katie Yaquinto says of her work… My practice is rooted in identity and transformation. Working primarily with found and repurposed textiles, I assemble fragments into large, patchwo...

Large Found Object Abstract Mixed Media Panel, colorful abstract composition within black painted frame. Overall: 50.75" H x 62" W x 2.5" D. Provenance: From a New York City Collec...

Katie Yaquinto says of her work… My practice is rooted in identity and transformation. Working primarily with found and repurposed textiles, I assemble fragments into large, patchwo...

assemblage sculpture: old wood mantle clock box refashioned to resemble a Morocco Riad mansion, 6 antique painted skittles pins, antique photo with ...

In the body of work for “Child’s Play” Roleke has created diminutive worlds in which toys tell the story of consumption, consumerism, war, and the misuse of power and religion. The m...

"Rift Valley, Sonde 1" is a textural and elemental abstract painting on canvas. It explores the hybridization of chance-derived color-fields with bas-relief aesthetics. Various techn...

Tango Boardgame with Markers-acrylic paint, graphite, decorative paper, found objects and marked tissue paper on canvas. The board game of life, as with tango, metamorphically has ma...

A 2010 documentary on Harald focused on his impressive exhibition in the Chelsea art district of New York City. In this heavily textured abstract painting, Harald M. Olson uses oil...

Katie Yaquinto says of her work… My practice is rooted in identity and transformation. Working primarily with found and repurposed textiles, I assemble fragments into large, patchwo...

"At Sea between Fossils and Satellites 7" is a textural and elemental abstract painting on canvas. It explores the hybridization of chance-derived color-fields with art deco aestheti...

"Trans Youth - Body of a boy/girl, mind of a monster, soul of an unearthly thing. Prejudice against transgender people is widespread." KAT FLYN is a self-taught assemblage artist working presently out of San Diego. She began her career as a costume designer in Southern California. Over the years she amassed a trove of artifacts and collectables which she began using to create assemblage art in the 1990’s. In 2000 she sold her business and moved to Cuyamaca, a remote community in the mountains outside of San Diego to devote herself exclusively to her artwork. In 2003 her work was interrupted when the Cedar Fire swept through San Diego county and destroyed the forest, her home & studio along with almost all of her collections and works of art. Following the fire she relocated to San Francisco, where she spent a decade concentrating on her art in her studio in SOMA and exhibiting at galleries in the Bay Area. In 2015 she returned to San Diego and now works out of her studio in La Jolla, exhibiting there and in Los Angeles. Kat Flyn refers to herself as an Assemblage Sculptor and her works as Political Art or Protest Art. She separates herself from other assemblage artists in that she only employs “saved” as opposed to “found” objects in her work; and her pieces always have a political or cultural narrative to them rather than being surreal or abstract. She also constructs or refashions many of the pieces which she uses in her art, for example she turns a soft drink box...

This sculpture created by Ken Butler is part guitar part surfboard. It is made in the spirit of absurdity many surrealists embraced using found objects in functional scenarios. signe...

Wood was integral to the artistic practice of the late Markku Kosonen of Finland. An important aspect of his work was the ability to express things; cra...

medium: reclaimed button-down shirts on birch plywood panel Born in 1971 in Cincinnati, Ohio, CARLTON SCOTT STURGILL received his Masters of Arts (Fine Art) from London’s Chelsea Co...

"Psalm 63:4...While I Live" is a religious original oil pastel drawing on a grocery bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed and titled the piece lower right. This piece illustrates...

Jo Yarrington has always been interested in chance and the found {moment, object, person}. How random experiences click in to place, form a narrative, reveal a truth. All the work ...

Jo Yarrington has always been interested in chance and the found {moment, object, person}. How random experiences click in to place, form a narrative, reveal a truth. All the work ...

Jo Yarrington has always been interested in chance and the found {moment, object, person}. How random experiences click in to place, form a narrative, reveal a truth. All the work ...

Jo Yarrington has always been interested in chance and the found {moment, object, person}. How random experiences click in to place, form a narrative, reveal a truth. All the work ...

Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of paintings and sculptures that have been created since the spring of 2014. Using domestic construction materials from her garage, extras from home improvement projects or the garden, have been captured, much like a photogram, but with paint, not silver. By blending photography and painting, Fagan finds that the patterns created with industrial, mass-produced objects around the house and garage, speak to her interest in producing paintings that link to sound. These works are portraits of the artist’s home, its history, and the materials used to build that maintain her home. Ellen Hackl Fagan builds connections between color and sound using installations, interactive games, and collaborative projects that combine color-and-texture saturated paintings with music...

Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of paintings and sculptures that have been created since the spring of 2014. Using domestic construction materials from her garage, extras from home improvement projects or the garden, have been captured, much like a photogram, but with paint, not silver. By blending photography and painting, Fagan finds that the patterns created with industrial, mass-produced objects around the house and garage, speak to her interest in producing paintings that link to sound. These works are portraits of the artist’s home, its history, and the materials used to build that maintain her home. Ellen Hackl Fagan builds connections between color and sound using installations, interactive games, and collaborative projects that combine color-and-texture saturated paintings with music...

Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of paintings and sculptures that have been created since the spring of 2014. Ellen Hackl Fagan_SeekingtheSoundofCobaltBlue_Found Object...

The freestanding sculptures in this portfolio are made from the “sticks”: a pile of found wood that Sweibel has been pulling from to make new works since about 2002. The pile consist...

The freestanding sculptures in this portfolio are made from the “sticks”: a pile of found wood that Sweibel has been pulling from to make new works since about 2002. The pile consisted of more than a dozen four- to seven-foot lengths of hardwood, each an uneven inch in depth and width. The sticks were warped, with worn yellow paint on one side and raw wood on the other three. Over the years she has painted the raw sides of the sticks, cut the wood into shorter lengths, and sliced paint off – and kept the residue from these actions. Sweibel has also made sculptures ranging from full-length sticks to tiny stick splinters. She built these sculptures using sliced-off paint. Timeworn materials and objects have an intelligence that the artist looks for and listens to. Shaping and reshaping material to find new form and elicit new insights in the material itself is the territory she is mining. The limitations of the process are its strengths. Her work is concerned with fragility, precariousness, adaptability, and strength. It is a visual response to powerful yet unseen forces - like wind and thoughts - that threaten, propel, ruin, and protect. Liz Sweibel is a multidisciplinary artist working in drawing, sculpture, installation, and digital photography and video. Her spare, personal language of abstraction transforms ordinary materials into statements about connectedness and responsibility: every action has an impact, the effects persist in space and over time, and we are accountable. By drawing attention to simple, ordinary “stuff of life” and referencing both shared and personal history, Sweibel’s work explores and reflects back fundamental experiences in response to our world and relationships. Her intention is to reinvigorate viewers’ awareness of the everyday – in its raw beauty and precariousness – in hopes that they might bring heightened senses of sight and care to their daily lives. Sweibel has participated in solo, two-person, and group exhibits in New York, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Michigan, and Tennessee since 1998. In 2016, Sweibel’s work was in the group shows Lightly Structured at Sculpture Space NYC, Precarious Constructs at the Venus Knitting Art...

Schwartz received a degree in fine art from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia, and later studied sculpture at Columbia University. Her work has been shown in...

Schwartz received a degree in fine art from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia, and later studied sculpture at Columbia University. Her work has been shown in...

Schwartz received a degree in fine art from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia, and later studied sculpture at Columbia University. Her work has been shown in...

"Breakfast in Merida (Homage to Carmen Miranda)" is an original woven wool tapestry with velvet fruit by Joan Ward Summers. It is a decorative tableau which displays a background pat...

Jo Yarrington’s photographs, prints, works on paper, glass sculptures and architecturally-based installations have been shown in exhibitions at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Yale University, Cornell University, the Museum of Glass, the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Artists Space, St. John the Divine Cathedral, Grounds for Sculpture, the Museum of American Glass and ODETTA, among others. International exhibitions have included Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow Cathedral, Glasgow University, Galeria Sala Uno and Centro de las Artes de Guanajuato. She represented the United States at the Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates and participated in the Berlin Biennial. in 2010 she received the Bronze Prize, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, Macedonia. Yarrington is a recipient of artist grants and Fellowships from the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. She has received Residency Fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Museum of Glass, the Museum of American Glass, the Bridge Virtual Residency/ SciArt Center, the Lucile Walton Fellow/Mountain Lake Biological Station, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Anderson Center and the Ucross Foundation, among others. International grants and fellowships have included the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity/Canada, SIMS Residency/ Iceland, Cill Rialaig Artists Residency/Ireland, the Burren College of Art Residency/Ireland and the American Scandinavian Foundation. She is a Professor of Visual and Performing Arts at Fairfield University and lives and works in New York City. STATEMENT In site-specific exhibitions, public art commissions, collaborative and individual projects Jo Yarrington has used varied combinations of glass, waxed surfaces, found artifacts and experimental analog photography to investigate the way we perceive – searching for, experimenting with and developing throughout a sensory-based vernacular. Her mostly translucent materials function as physical framework and symbolic membrane. Light, both natural and ambient, provides a kinetic or time-based element to her work. Scale and the integration of architecture are also pivotal components. In the 6-part installation for the two-person exhibition Illuminated, Yarrington continues her interest in the connections between vision, sound and language. In Mute-ability: Compositions 1 – 6, her title for this light-based comprehensive work, she combines the words mute and malleability. The work focuses on found piano rolls, a music storage medium, originally conceived as coded notations or ‘note control data’ for music produced in pneumatic player pianos...

The intricate retablos of contemporary artist Patrick Fitzgerald are his means of paying homage to the musicians that inspired him throughout his life. Derived from Mexican votive...