December Split Level Gallery 2025
Worlds in Pieces
Works by Kristi W. Colbert and Jodi Hoover
December 5 - January 10
Opening Reception on Arts Night Out
In a world increasingly afflicted by upheaval and destruction, the notion of place sits at the crux of fragility and resilience. How and where do we belong? Through the use of collage and mixed media practices, Colbert and Hoover build real and imagined landscapes that explore hopes and fears for our world. Labor intensive processes become a meditative way to balance tensions, create cohesion, and understand our connections and place within today's chaos.
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Jodi Hoover is an artist, teacher, and librarian working in Western Massachusetts. Her work explores storytelling as a (sometimes unreliable) way to explain the dangerous, beautiful world. Familiar and domestic designs, such as quilt patterns, bleed into fairy-tale landscapes created through the use of layered hand-cut collage work.
Hoover holds a Master of Fine Art degree from Towson University and a Master of Library Science from University of Maryland, College Park. She teaches book and printmaking workshops and has exhibited work throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. She enjoys talking about her rescue dogs and loves cicadas.
IG @jodi_hoover
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Kristi W. Colbert is a mixed media artist specializing in painted paper collage - a medium she wandered into experimentally as a means of breaking out of her perfectionism and into her creative freedom. For Kristi, collaging is the best of both worlds: painterly and sculptural; deconstructive and reconstructive; realistic and abstract; intricate and unfussy. With a B.A. in Studio Art and Geology from Colgate University, a M.S. in Leadership from Northeastern University, and nearly 20 years experience working in various sectors of education, Kristi returned to her lifelong passion for art in earnest at the onset of the pandemic. Now working from her home studio in Leverett, MA, she draws inspiration from her surroundings—country life in Western Massachusetts as well her travels and wanderlust beyond. Made from scraps of recycled junk mail painted with gouache, pencil, and neocolor crayon, Kristi’s work palpably explores sense of place, as transportive landscapes, seascapes, and cityscapes emerge from paper bits. Ultimately, it is a record of places traveled, a map to what lies ahead, and an energetic manifestation of hope and repair - gluing together pieces of a broken world as a reminder of the beauty that surrounds us. Through her work, Kristi invites viewers to revel in multiplicity, sink into the wonder of place, and make meaning from scrap. Her work has been exhibited by galleries in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Michigan, recognized by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, featured in Gillette Stadium and the Massachusetts State House, and has a fast growing body of collectors near and far.