Kirsten Hassenfeld
Watermark with Cobweb 2006
Artist-made paper with mixed media
Value: $1000

Trained in printmaking, papermaking, and book making, Kirsten Hassenfeld is a sculptor who eschews sculpture’s traditional mediums to work with paper.  In her “Objects of Virtue” series, her interest in jewelry and decorative objects led her to craft items otherwise understood to be conventionally ornate and precious out of vellum and paper: subversive strings of oversized, opulent translucent gems built of paper.  Hassenfeld has explained, of her own work: “My work has evolved into a three-dimensional daydream in which my ambivalence toward material wealth and privilege is expressed. Precious objects speak about the cultures that produce and consume them; I revamp these objects with decidedly un-precious materials and varying scales, making fantasy tangible in a manner that calls into question what is considered precious. I conjure up for the viewer concoctions of wishes in an ephemeral form, promoting a state of wistful half-fulfillment.”  She received an MFA from University of Arizona, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn.  She is represented by the Bellwether Gallery.