Bits & Pieces presents layered ideas, lamination of contrasting styles, and paintings within paintings. Guests can enjoy a 360-degree interactive tour of the exhibition online. Bits & Pieces analyzes the practice of collage –as both technique and conceptual framework- in the unexpected context of a virtual space. With a focus on artists who utilize cropped and fragmented imagery in their artistic production, this collaborative project disassembles and recombines existing works of art to create a new conversation about authorship, representation and subjectivity. At once familiar and experimental, a collage is embedded with an implied transitional history. Whether pieced together by a young child in art class or inspired by the gritty socio-political provocations of Robert Rauschenberg’s ‘Combines,’ a collage is a tactile object that one might handle and hold; an ephemeral collection of cut-outs and found elements visually stitched together over a passage of time. From frayed fibers along a torn paper’s edge, to the deliberate overlapping of seemingly disparate imagery and symbols, the medium and methodology of collage is inherently associated with the body and haptic experience regardless of its mode of delivery. Bits & Pieces highlights the work of artists Jason Aponte, Diego Gutierrez, Jefreid Lotti, Jackie Tileston, Jonathan Ryan Harvey, and Third Space solo artist, Twyla Gettert. This virtual exhibition is a curatorial collaboration with South Florida-based art and technology organization, Interactive Initiative.

A graduate of the University of Iowa, Twyla Gettert creates in many mediums including painting, photography, manipulated digital radiography, and printmaking. Her work has been shown in museums and galleries throughout the U.S. Her art was selected for two international Sumi-E shows at the Osaka, Japan; National Museum of Fine Art. Her paintings and photography are collected by both private and corporate art enthusiasts and have been purchased by over 90 corporations and individual collectors. Gettert is the recipient of numerous awards for her paintings including a grant from the Enrico Donati Foundation, NYC, NY. “After college … I began attending workshops and artist retreats conducted by various successful art instructors. These retreats took me to varied locations across America as well as Mexico and South America. Up until this time, I had focused almost exclusively on “realism”, whether it was portrait, figurative, still-life, or landscape. The exposure to various artists opened the inner doors of my vision into areas outside of what is the physical image in front of me, expanding into the energy, aura, and even the metaphysical feel of the subject. (Later) I studied under a nationally known Taiwanese artist, Yueh Mei Cheng, a Chinese Brush Painting, Sumi brush, and Chinese calligraphy professor. Like all great teachers, Yueh Mei, guided my hand and assisted me with incorporating Chinese Brushstroke & Chinese calligraphy into my world of abstraction. This not only brought back the discipline of realism and refined my brush stroke, but, furthered a realization of the spontaneous ‘chi’ in my mark making. Drawing on my love of creating monotypes on an etching press I went from rice paper to rice paper used on the etching press.“