IN THE GALLERIES: Art with a (Re)Purpose

Written by

Alison McGee

Mixed-media assemblages by Michael Zelehoski at the Ferrin Gallery

Wooden remnants of a demolished building, dated leftovers from a home renovation, heirlooms that have become simply excess—these former treasures, often strewn across lawns or slumped defeatedly curbside, have been discarded as useless byproducts of past projects and lifestyles. But salvaging these rejects is just the beginning for thirty-year-old Pittsfield, Massachusetts, artist Michael Zelehoski, who recreates them as abstract variations of their former selves.

These reincarnations are at the center of Zelehoski’s most recent body of work, (DE)CONSTRUCTIONS, now on view just a few blocks from the artist’s workshop at Ferrin Gallery, whose delicate-yet-industrial space is the perfect home for such large, utilitarian works.

Using painstakingly precise shapes and careful placement, Zelehoski reworks the salvaged objects into seamless, two-dimensional works to exalt the former uses and inherent formalities that once saturated the materials. Reminiscent of Escher, the three-dimensional appearance of his works mimics the original form of the objects, such as a folding chair or old wooden scaffolding compressed flat. Zelehoski’s creativity in exploring the spatial dimensions and subtle qualities of found artifacts sheds gentle light on the discarded treasures we pass by every day. [JULY 2009]