Construct is built around the theme of social and material construction. The artists included use painting, sculpture, printmaking and collage to examine construction through various media. Whether through repurposing imagery or materials, creating imagined scenarios, shifting a ubiquitous object, or abstracting a familiar scene, each artist is restructuring information as we usually experience it to create a new paradigm for viewing our everyday physical and societal structures.

The exhibition will show Left-Twist Blocks, a new work by Aaron T Stephan. At first glance these may not seem different from the universal cinderblock, however Stephan has cast cinderblocks in a torqued form. These twisted blocks, which in stacks spiral upwards, lack functionality of the original form, turning ubiquity into the monumental.

Also working with concrete is Stephanie Cardon. Her piece Oil and Water uses fabricated cinderblocks and suspended bamboo thread to create a dimensional moiré effect in space. Her cyanotypes, Lazy Haze and Seersucker Sky, create a similar moiré pattern, showing shifting perceptual qualities. The choice of process resulted from a curiosity about how the space or distance between things could be represented. These works show an exploration of an idea from two angles, allowing the viewer insight into Cardon’s process.

Margaret Rizzio’s collages, Sardines and Adventure is Here use ephemera such as books, magazines, playing cards, advertisements, and stamps from the 1940’s-60’s as source material. Focusing in on representations from this specific time period, she recontextualized the imagery, creating a warped nostalgic commentary on the world today.

Representing a different facet of the theme are paintings by Elizabeth Fox. Look at what the Venus blew in and Help in Wonderland are paintings of imagined scenarios, playing with situations in a way that is seemingly dismissible as reality.