//HIDEOUTS//
Works by Sage Schmett & Alex Marantz
On view from 5/3 - 6/2

SAGE SCHMETT is an artist working mostly with cardboard, magazines, catalogues, and other forms of recycled paper. She uses collage and sculptural strategies to explore mess and clutter, and the ways in which they define our private spaces. Sage earned a BFA in Fiber Arts from MassArt in 2012, and regularly shows her sculpture and fiber work around the Boston area. She collaborates with local musicians, and contributed drawings to the 2016 rock documentary Danny Says. Sage lives and works in Allston, MA.

ARTIST STATEMENT My work centers around exploring collections of things: I’m interested in how we accumulate memories, dreams, loss, and desire in the form of mess and clutter. I think of my practice as a vehicle for exploring how our possessions reflect us and define our private spaces. My most recent sculptures have been dollhouses with dream-like interiors made of recycled materials, like cardboard and magazines.

Houses in particular have captured my focus because by virtue of containing our stuff, they act as repositories for imprints of personal experience. My approach to building them actually goes back to making shoebox dioramas as a kid, creating little rooms with miniature collaged objects in them.

The process of browsing catalogues and magazines for images feels like a shopping spree, and the act of accumulating all these cut-out items I’m naturally drawn to is oddly thrilling. Cutting out and mounting these images on cardboard transforms them into a new type of object by giving them another physical dimension, and collecting them feels analogous to owning the actual things that the images represent. There is a deeply repetitive aspect to this process—cutting and gluing over long spans of time, and arranging lots of tiny objects into elaborate piles of debris—that gives me a meditative sense of catharsis.

The body of work I’ve created is meant to encourage close attention, and invite immersion in the layers of details. Building intimate spaces that play with our visual associations is a way for me to control a small slice of complexity, against the backdrop of a chaotic and overstimulating society.

With an uninhibited painting style, ALEX MARANTZ incorporates a bright palette into deliberate yet free-flowing patterns. Alex is a UX designer and musician who started painting with acrylics two years ago. His inspirations include comfort food, running, and international music.

ARTIST STATEMENT I’m inspired by carefree sensibilities. I don’t really have the ability to feel this way in my day to day world. So to be able to free myself while painting is a huge relief and a good balance to my life. It’s my therapy tool and allows me to stay sane. My process is very much organic. I start with a color and a canvas, preferably larger in size. I let my hand move freely, create shapes and build some sort of foundation. I move fast and try not to change course. Painting to me is meditative and I’d like to avoid putting pressure on outcomes. This is my process today, but I’m always open to change and growing as an artist.