9″x12″; acrylic, paper, ink, gouache, and temperature data fragment on board. Courtesy of the artist.
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Joy & Grief: An Exhibition of Collage
at Kolaj Institute Gallery in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
12 April-31 May 2025
Opening Reception: 12 April 2025, 6-8PM
during Second Saturday in the Bywater Artwalk
RSVP FOR THE OPENING RECEPTION
Joy and Grief: These two deeply human experiences are deeply connected. In New Orleans, our funerals start with grief, the somber second line’s somber dirge, and end in celebratory joy as we shake our asses and march down the street. On Mardi Gras, the Krewe of Saint Anne parades to the Mississippi River, a joyous occasion to pour the ashes of our lost loved ones into the water. In this city, we know that joy and grief are two sides of the same coin. You cannot fully understand one without the other. In this exhibition, fourteen International Collage Artists explore the obversity of Joy and Grief.
13.5″x17.5″; scraps from the water damaged Sumi Art book; 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
The large collage installation at the center of the exhibition, “Amdalia” by Jamie Amdal Hughes (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA), “was born out of grief and trauma.” The artwork was made in response to the successive deaths of her father, architect James Russell Amdal, and mother, artist Nancy “Lou Lou” Martin Amdal, in 2024 and 2023 respectively. “The collages I created in this period helped me reconnect with the joy, love, and creativity that was the foundation of our Amdal family. This exhibit is my attempt to uplift and honor my family legacy, while still being true to the pain and struggles that are intertwined with our story. The process of analog collage: selecting meaningful pieces, composing them in a new context and framework, and the tactile and emotional experience of assembly, has been extremely therapeutic for me, enabling me to both hold on to the memories and let go of the pain. The exhibit is a collection of those works intertwined with meaningful pieces of my family story, essentially a collage of my grief. While ‘Amdalia’ is extremely personal, I hope that viewers may be inspired to reconcile dichotomies within their own families and find healing in their own creative processes.”
8″x8″x1.5″; wood canvas, watercolor crayon, photo, fabric, and ephemera; 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
Using text from the Book of Lamentations as prompts for a collage series, Ray Maseman (Stevensville, Michigan, USA) “explores and embodies grief as a normal, healthy, and integral, yet difficult and disheartening facet of human existence.” He wrote, “The elements of chance and serendipity inherent in collage mirror the sometimes unpredictable pathways of grief. At the same time, the playfulness of collage allows for being surprised by joy.” In the artwork of Beth I. Robinson (Lorane, Oregon, USA), fragments, ghosts of materials, soft pencil lines, and patterns capture the missing, forgotten, or things often left unspoken beneath the surface of loss.
A number of artworks in the exhibition were developed during Kolaj Institute’s Joy & Grief Residency, where artists came together to explore these subjects and make artwork that asks, How do we make sense of loss? How do we cultivate and celebrate Joy?
Mori Anderson Hitchcock (Chester, Pennsylvania, USA) presents joy and grief as two interchangeable, overlapping masks. Jhanique Lovejoy (Valley Stream, New York, USA) draws on her family’s photography archive to express Black Joy. Rachel Cohn (Indianapolis, Indiana, USA) reflects on the Jewish month of Adar and the Talmudic commandment to “increase your joy.” Katalina Barrera (Forest Hills, New York, USA) used painted images of demons from art history to question the complex morality of Schadenfreude.
Marite Norris (Scarborough, Western Australia, Australia) drew on the visual language of tarot to illustrate “radical joy in the face of loss and destruction.” A collaged clock by Missy Arellano (Belmont, Massachusetts, USA) draws on the artist’s personal journey to uncover joy in the face of trauma and loss. Denise E Clemen (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) considered the joy before the grief of losing children to adoption and estrangement.
A collage by maryhope|whitehead|lee (Phoenix, Arizona, USA) speaks “of the grief of living in an aging body and of holding on to joy.” RED Kadetsky (Brooklyn, New York, USA) wrote, “Grief lives in my cells, in my bones, and feels like it embeds itself into the fiber of my being. By placing objects and bodies among the macro and micro, I examine grief as a transformation of the body, specifically my own.”
Jennifer Evans (Denver, Colorado, USA) drew from the history of social movements in Mexico to contemplate the joy of protest. A collage by Linda Archibald (Killaloe, Ontario, Canada) is a grief response to the loss of democracy.
“Joy and Grief are complicated states of being and often contain a multitude of emotions,” said exhibition curator and Kolaj Institute Director, Ric Kasini Kadour. “We don’t choose grief. Loss is thrust on us and we are compelled to make sense of it. Happiness is fleeting and joy is something we must choose to cultivate in our lives. Both of these things operate in irrational ways, prompted by historical events but experienced in ahistorical ways. Memory, nostalgia, life experience, past trauma…all of these things provide context to the feelings we are having at any given moment. That statement also explains how collage works in the world. In this exhibition, the artists draw upon their personal experiences and invite us to consider the complexity of grief and joy.”
In addition to the exhibition, Kolaj Institute will publish a book in June 2025 that explores how collage artists make art about joy and grief and how art can guide us as we develop a deeper relationship with these two facets of human experience.
The Gallery is located at 2374 Saint Claude Avenue, Suite 230, at the corner with St. Roch Avenue above the Peach Cobbler Factory. The Gallery is open Thursday-Saturday, Noon-6PM or by appointment and until 9PM on Second Saturday.
RSVP FOR THE OPENING RECEPTION
ABOUT KOLAJ INSTITUTE GALLERY
The mission of Kolaj Institute is to support artists, curators, and writers who seek to study, document, and disseminate ideas that deepen our understanding of collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century movement. We operate a number of initiatives meant to bring together community, investigate critical issues, and raise collage’s standing in the art world.
Kolaj Institute’s Gallery in New Orleans presents exhibitions and connects Kolaj Institute and the artists we work with to the vibrant St. Claude Arts District. We produce 8-10 exhibitions a year and participate in Second Saturday, the neighborhood’s monthly art walk, putting the collage art, books and exhibitions in front of New Orleanians and visitors. The Gallery is located at 2374 Saint Claude Avenue, Suite 230, at the corner with St. Roch Avenue above the Peach Cobbler Factory. The Gallery is open Thursday-Saturday, Noon-6PM or by appointment.