Featured Artist

Gale Rothstein– New York, NY
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Gale Rothstein’s art practice has always been about ‘putting together the pieces’-as a child it was not unusual for her to take apart one thing to make another. Creating assemblage/collage sculptures provides her with unlimited opportunities for choice of materials through her penchant for collecting vintage objects, the harvested innards of discarded and broken appliances and hardware, and the amazing things found on the street. Through the creation of her assemblage environments, the parameters of context are wide open; she creates fantasy worlds that incorporate references to Dada and Surrealism, historical content, and through juxtaposition of contrasting elements, prompt the viewer to question relationships to scale, location, and relativity. “Where are we? Who is here with us? How big or small are we? Are we awake or dreaming?” As we enter and journey through a crumbling amusement park, abandoned bathroom consumed by nature, or bedroom that is situated simultaneously inside a room and on an Italian piazza, the visitor is challenged to reevaluate one’s sense of time, place, and orientation. Her titles are also part of the creative process; identifying the work with compelling names further add to the mystique and are an essential finishing touch.
The artist dedicates her work to the memory of her father Milton Rothstein, a jack of all trades and one of the original recyclers and re-purposers, decades before it was a trend. She inherited his vintage collection of parts, and incorporates many of his objects into her assemblages, further supporting the historical and personal foundation of the work.