Box 1975

Hannelore Baron made this “Box” out of found materials, like wood scraps, odds and ends. It's like she gathered up forgotten bits of the world and gave them a new life together. The whole piece feels really tactile. You can almost feel the rough texture of the wood, the layers of dirt and age, and the strange poetry of the mark making. Look at the way she’s arranged everything, how the dark colours sit next to the lighter ones, how the shapes fit together. Each element is kind of raw and unrefined, but when she puts them together, they become more than the sum of their parts. Check out the graffiti scrawled in white on the left, “No More,” repeated again and again, as if echoing some kind of desperate refrain. It's stark, it's raw, it hits you in the gut, you know? Baron reminds me a bit of Kurt Schwitters, maybe, both these artists were so good at finding beauty in the discarded. Ultimately, she shows us that art doesn't always have to be about perfection, it can be about embracing the imperfect and finding new possibilities in the everyday.