Tag: recycled materials

Michelle Dumas transforms forgotten thrift-store paintings into dazzling contemporary artworks using thousands of individually applied sequins, breathing new life into vintage florals, landscapes, portraits, and found treasures. Rooted in a love of thrifting, upcycling, and creative reinvention, her practice challenges traditional ideas about value, beauty, and permanence by rescuing discarded artworks and turning them into vibrant, light-filled pieces that constantly shift with their surroundings. Working through an intensely time-consuming process, Michelle carefully builds layers of colour, texture, shimmer, and pattern that invite viewers to slow down and experience the work from…

Faye Johansen’s practice begins with attention to nature, to material, and to the quiet traces things leave behind. Working across watercolour, collage, and handmade journals, she builds surfaces that carry both process and place. At the centre of her work is a powerful series of one hundred charcoal portraits of Indigenous children, drawn onto discarded books layered with torn maps, music notation, and fragments of text. Each material holds meaning, speaking to displacement, memory, and loss, while charcoal allows the faces to remain both present and fragile. Alongside this, her journals…