12-28 March 2015
Hope Kroll: “Unbound”
“Unbound” is Hope Kroll’s first exhibition at Joseph Gross Gallery, and is entirely focused on her three-dimensional collages. “Unbound” is a tribute to the obsessions and unequalled creative skills of the artist, who has been collecting images culled from a wide range of sources since 1998. The images in her three-dimensional collages are “unbound” because when she carves them out they become isolated from their original context to be given new life. Once the images are carefully rearranged as part of the process, they seem to float on the surface each with a distinct connotation and vitality. Hope’s detailed figures, often permeated by a yellow patina due to the vintage quality of her book covers and blank pages, are inextricably connected to the background and yet suspended in a maze-like intricate microcosm where reality can be two-dimensional and three-dimensional at the same time. Hope Kroll’s work focuses on medical imagery, birds, flowers, machinery and anything that may attract her attention. The artist constantly juxtaposes the images selected in endless new ways. She usually works with vintage books, lithographs, etchings and old photographs. These books and photographs are especially compelling as they each possess their own unique history, having passed through many hands before coming into her possession. Kroll doesn’t use magazines, scans or anything digital. Furthermore she doesn’t transform paper with paint, glues or other mediums because she prefers to work with raw materials.
About Hope Kroll
Hope Kroll was born in Skokie, Illinois and moved out to California when she was 21 years old. She was first enrolled in art school at the age of seven, when she was trained in oil painting. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana in 1990. Hope Kroll obtained her Masters of Fine Arts in 1992 from the San Francisco Art Institute.
(text adapted from the gallery’s press materials)
INFORMATION
Joseph Gross Gallery
Suite 232
548 West 28th Street
New York, New York 10001 USA
(646) 535-6528
Hours:
Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, 11AM-6PM
Thursday, 11AM-9PM
Image:
Essence of Orange
by Hope Kroll
21.5″x18.5″
hand-cut paper collage, 3-dimensional
Courtesy of the artist and Joseph Gross Gallery, New York