"Francisco Alvarado, Patricia Liverman, Karin Skiba & Jim Zver"

About the Exhibition

Collage as a concept can take many forms. To build, to develop, to transform these ideas are inherent in collage but can manifest themselves in various ways. Zver's collages include mixed media paper-based works, wood constructions, wall reliefs, and freestanding sculptures. His approach is elegant and playful, combining thoughtful color palettes and meticulous craftsmanship, resulting in visual curiosities that are minimal, but richly satisfying. Skiba utilizes found images along with mixed media drawing and painting to suggest narratives that reflect her journeys both physical and emotional. Layers of carefully selected photos intermingle with colors, textures, and marks that are at times quirky and whimsical, or alternately, nostalgic and contemplative. Liverman recycles paint in unexpected ways. Dried and skinned from its two-­dimensional surface, paint becomes a collage material in itself, used in the rebirthing of new paintings or assembled into constructed sculptures. One forgets they are looking at paint because its function has been so cleverly appropriated. In the paintings and digital images of Alvarado, literal collage is rarely found. Instead, formal elements of pattern, color, and gesture are layered in dynamic, intuitive ways. The compositions evoke either places or states of mind. Often digitizing his paintings, Alvarado uses them as the first layer in what we might call cyber-­collages.