Everyday Inside Out

Common stationery-store labels, stickers, and burst signs have been a primary source of imagery in Bradley Wester’s work. Using painting, collage, and digital technology, the labels are transformed into abstract images that reference a diversity of icons— from the modernist grid to computer circuitry, from the Italian Baroque to Japanese Anime. The work blurs the line between ‘dumb’ and ‘high-tech’ information architectures, between ‘low’ and ‘fine’ art. When Wester’s early drawing/collages, using actual paper labels, began to mimic the look and geometry of computer circuit boards, he was inspired to enlist real computer circuitry to ‘re-draw’ the label and sticker designs as digital files: the paper label, a low-tech information architecture, mimicking circuitry, a hi-tech information architecture, which in turn mimics the original paper label—full circle.

Elizabeth Duffy’s work resurfaces themes of transience and transformation, using objects and drawings made with labor-intensive methods. Her sources are the overlooked remnants of things we use in our daily routines. Business envelopes, cleaning products, lint, straws and office supplies are accumulated and manipulated to bring out their alternate lives and to draw attention to what we use and discard.