ARTIST STATEMENT
My work is a dialogue between time and material, where history is not a backdrop but a living participant. I collect found objects—fragments of the discarded, the forgotten, the once cherished—and reassemble them into layered collages that function as portals. These portals are not merely visual; they are conceptual thresholds that invite viewers to step into alternate narratives, to reimagine the past through the lens of the present.
Each object carries its own memory, a residue of human touch and context. By juxtaposing these elements—rusted metal beside faded photographs, handwritten notes layered over industrial textures—I aim to disrupt linear storytelling and instead evoke a sense of temporal simultaneity. The collage becomes a site of excavation and invention, where personal and collective histories converge.
Through this practice, I explore how memory is constructed, how meaning is layered, and how art can serve as a vessel for time travel—not through fantasy, but through the tangible echoes of what once was.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
A life-long artist and mostly self-taught, Kristen Neveu currently resides in nature near many lakes halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee. Growing up in the midwest, after graduating from The University of Iowa with a Communications major, she began painting in the evenings after work. Kristen’s artwork combines mixed materials, including acrylic and oil paint, pencil, paper, fabric and fragments of wood. Kristen is inspired by nature, music and collecting salvaged materials and possessions.
Selected exhibitions include James May Gallery in Milwaukee, WI; The Robert Wright Gallery of Art at the College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL; The Saw Room Gallery in Evanston; The Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Barnsdall Art Gallery in Los Angeles, and Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, and many art pop-up exhibitions in local businesses and libraries.
Also skilled in image archiving and legalities, Kristen’s job experience includes Getty Images, Warner Bros. Entertainment Media Archives, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
© Kristen Neveu