12″x9″; vintage magazines, pencil, letter transfer; 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
COLLAGE ON VIEW
The Misfits
at PULP Holyoke in Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA
20 February-14 March 2021
“The Misfits” is a group show featuring work by Rebecca Doughty, Torai Keita, Matt Neckers, Claudio Pedraza, and collage artist Michael Sjostedt.
Michael Sjostedt’s collages from his “Wavelength” series continue the artist’s sideway celebration of renegade subcultures, which wave some through the door while building barriers of entry for others. Each piece in this series puts the act of surfing in stasis—still moments of cool athleticism—while also inhabiting the headspace of a surfer: aloof, alive, and apart from the world. while much of the imagery in this series depicts a devil-may-care culture where the only cost of admission is a love to surf, Sjostedt is also interested in the bro tropes that persist from Frankie Avalon’s beach movies to any modern-day surf shop. Inspired by monochromatic oceanscapes, many works in this series limit the color in the composition: appropriate for surfers dwarfed by the monolithic body in which they swim. Sjostedt revisited the freehand cuts of his formation series to evoke the artist’s hand, a technique complemented by the inclusion of pencil markings. He layered muted and aged paper to create a vintage look reminiscent of surfing’s heyday, as well as to mimic the altered state a surfer experiences in search of the next great wave.
(Text adapted from the artist’s and the gallery’s press materials)
INFORMATION
PULP Holyoke
80 Race Street
Holyoke, Massachusetts 01040 USA
(413) 362-6368
Hours:
Friday-Sunday, 10AM-3PM
and by appointment