LaThoriel Badenhausen is an artist based in New York City who renders sculptures and installations out of re-purposed, found objects. Badenhausen expands upon the aesthetic language that was characteristic of her home Minnesota, which she describes as culturally insulated and geographically isolated. The artist utilizes the techniques of bricolage to affect the imagery in her work while establishing new discourse around the mass-produced objects that are combined and altered into small-scale, unique dioramas.

Light Paradigm (2012) is a 36-inch square wall installation of torn representations from Cartier, Christie’s and Sotheby’s catalogues that depict necklaces and earrings. The artist removed the gemstone representations and replaced them with frame stills from fairytale films. These images of painted representations are not only pinned to the wall but also stand a distance away from the elaborate objects depicted.

Memorial Up Memorial (2012) locates the literal meaning of nature-morte (dead nature) in the genre of still life that appears to be a memento mori . The artist’s play upon word, object and meaning reaches an apex in Frei (2012), which features a large sheet of yellow paper bending around a light green wastepaper basket. A red vinyl record leans against both objects completing the piece that means “Free.”

Badenhausen has exhibited throughout the Northeast, Colorado, Washington and California. In 2010 the Watchung Arts Center in New Jersey hosted a solo show for the artist titled Negotiation, and since then her work has been feature in about a dozen group shows. Since 2009 Badenhausen’s work has been featured in Pierogi’s Online Flat File as well as The Drawing Center’s Viewing Program. The artist’s sculptural ephemera is also part of several museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the National Museum of American Art and the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. LaThoriel Badenhausen’s work will also be on display in the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, located at the World Trade Center in New York City. Her art is currently included in a group show at Denise Bibro Fine Art titled Art From the Burroughs, on view through January 5, 2013.