“Paper Cuts”:
Winston Smith, John Held, Jr., David Jones, and Hope Kroll
1-31 October 2015
“Paper Cuts”, a group show featuring Bay Area artists Winston Smith, John Held, Jr., and David Jones, and Hope Kroll from Central California. Reminiscent of Matisse’s “Cut-Out” series, “Paper Cuts” shows how paper can take on a strength and beauty in it’s abstract and narrative forms. In this exhibition, the artists observe how such a simple medium can be transformed into diverse ranges of forms. Considering paper’s history as one of the oldest formats for documentation and avenues for expressing ideas, the exhibition continues to foster the growth of this utilitarian medium and explores how it can adapt with the times.
“Paper Cuts” features four artists who all express their unique take on the same material. Winston Smith’s work, in their traditional collage format, express a social-cultural phenomenon. They deal with America and the world’s issues and tragedies, using icons, humour and aesthetic juxtaposition. Hope Kroll, like Smith yet different in approach and subject, intensifies her collage with three-dimensional exploration of contemporary ideas using vintage books. David Jones, recycling vintage puzzles, causes us to reach for a separate reality 
within the child’s familiar game. John Held, Jr., whose many years of being active in the Fluxus-generated world of mail art, has reinvented himself using the cut out perforations from his arcane, yet extremely beautiful, perforation machine. Each of these gems glisten and glow when adhered to canvas to create formal and enticing works of conceptual contemporary art.
The Opening Reception takes place Thursday, 8 October, 6-8PM.
Kolaj featured Winston Smith’s work in Kolaj #6 (on the cover and the interview, “In Paste We Trust”). Hope Kroll’s work has been mentioned several times in Kolaj and her collage Ghost in the Machine is featured in the Kolaj Exhibition-in-Print “Broken Bodies”.
(text adapted from the gallery’s press materials)
INFORMATION
Robert Berman/E6 Gallery
Suite B
1632 Market Street
San Francisco, California 94102 USA
(415) 964-1937
Hours by appointment only
Image (top):
Men of Industry by Hope Kroll
28″x30″; collage; 2015
Image courtesy of the artist and E6 Gallery, San Francisco
Image (centre right):
Maps and Guns by Hope Kroll
36″x32″; collage; 2014
Image courtesy of the artist and E6 Gallery, San Francisco
Image (bottom right):
Homage to Nabokov by Hope Kroll
28″x24″; collage; 2014
Image courtesy of the artist and E6 Gallery, San Francisco