Whether trolling for discarded "treasure" in antique stores, abandoned barns, salvage yards, or flea markets across the globe, common themes resonate throughout these four artists' works. They are drawn to discarded remnants of the past as they search for deeper meaning in the present. Each possesses a passion for constructing layered assemblages that incorporate aged found objects in unconventional ways. Their works offer juxtapositions of vintage and modern, organic and industrial, rigid and malleable, combined to tell stories of universal significance.

Andrew Saftel - Painter
"I have always been interested in trying to understand more about the lives, times, inventions and discoveries that have brought us to this moment. The paintings are chronicles: atmospheres of thought, filled with words, images and stories. Like a life lived, these paintings are layers of information - partly obscured, partly revealed. When I begin to work I use historic documents, personal letters, and found objects. I arrange them on the panels as I search for connections, which will eventually reveal meaning. I want the paintings to tell the story of a search within which many strands of thought, and experience, exist."

Johan Hagaman - Sculptor
"The ritual of creating art is like a homecoming for me: it involves returning to the ground of myself and exploring that terrain of the psyche - of the emotions, attitudes and influences which combine to create a sense of identity. Recurring motifs usually deal with duality: fragility and resilience open and closed, nature and the manmade. Opposites rubbed against each other create a spark. The psyche is full of contradictions, so I choose my materials accordingly. I use architectural elements from old houses and rusted castoffs from piles on Southern farms as parts of the body. They are the material definitions of self we surround ourselves with, both masculine and feminine. They are the bones: the history we are built on."

Carrie McGee - Mixed Media Constructionist
"During the past decade, my work has been occupied with developing a unique material vocabulary. The elements of this vocabulary are process, transparency, found materials, chance and play. Films of rust are created by soaking materials in baths of water containing metal particles and objects for a period of time. Everything leaves a trace. From this initial process the work moves back and forth between painting and rusting until a layered and embedded surface is realized. The layered visual climate of this work speaks about interior life, time passage and memory. In it I explore visually the contradictory nature of impulses to expose and conceal, to draw in and to distance, through which we connect our inner life to the world."

Robin Luciano Beaty - Encaustic Painter
"My process is driven by the visceral journey of discovering something reminiscent rather than the recording of a specific space. The medium of encaustic provides me with that exploratory means of expression in a way everyday artists techniques cannot. I incorporate vintage photographs, letters, textiles and other found objects into the encaustic. Its qualities are sublime and unpredictable, additive and subtractive, translucent and sculptural which strongly influences the direction of the painting. The act of scraping, tearing, building up and burning down the layers of wax from the surface is metaphor for digging into memory and allows me to navigate that internal journey."