Cindy Kolodziejski at LA-Art Platform

This past weekend we participated in the second annual LA-Art Platform art fair, held at the Santa Monica Airport’s Barker Hangar. To fill our cozy booth, we brought along works by Larry Bell, Craig Kauffman, and Cindy Kolodziejski. Cindy’s installation, a re-worked version of her Portraits of Sorts and Curiosities, attracted a lot of attention from the press and fair attendees.

For the fair, Cindy produced 19 new pieces, which she integrated with works from 2011 to create the new installation. She and her husband then personally hung, salon-style, the 74 individual works, creating a stunning ensemble piece. Mounted in a variety of antique frames, some ornately carved or gilded, these small-scale “portraits” fuse two-dimensional imagery with three-dimensional objects that Cindy found, modified, or created. The works address themes as diverse as her materials, and demonstrate her distinctive mix of anatomical, botanical, figurative, and text-based imagery. Framing the curiously eclectic pieces in the style of treasured mementos created an unusual – but still playful – tension that visitors really responded to.

Cindy was generous enough to attend the fair all three days it was open, answering the many questions of the public. Because her integration of found and fabricated objects is so seamless, it can be difficult to distinguish between the two in her finished works. It was a pleasure to hear Cindy explain her process to excited fair-goers, who enjoyed their chance to hear from the artist directly.

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