What's the difference between holding onto an object and putting it in the trash? It isn’t the object. It is desire. Maybe it’s broken, maybe it’s out of style. In either case, it is broken. What if we can fix it? Can we rebuild it? Do we have the technology? Can we make it better than it was? We can make it better, make it appreciate in value. Make it stylish, give it newness.

I am interested in waste with respect to consumerism and material by-products. I consider the relationship between waste and the value of labor. I work in the mediums of low relief-collage and found-object sculpture with the intention to explore two themes:

One is the idea that the process of making is a feature of the object. It is a defining characteristic, equal in importance to other attributes, such as texture, color and shape.

The second theme is that desirability is the factor that keeps objects from going to waste.

If the object is desirable, I cannot afford to waste it. The history of the object — how it came to be — makes it more desirable. This is where I find that materials and labor converge.

In developing my artwork, I collect packages of post-consumer products, and then narrow my selection based on colors and texts. My intent is to reframe the scraps from by-products to art supplies. I shift from seeing the branding on a box of frozen pizza to realizing its place in color theory and trompe l’oeil techniques; the marketing messages get rearranged out of context into random snapshots of my mind at the time I made the piece, self-portraits of sorts.

I use thick, visible layers in my collage to convey a stepped progression, a series of individual tasks. I approach the physical form as a record of the invisible memory of the object. Similarly, in my sculptures, I construct larger forms from smaller building blocks. With an indirect reference to the Fibonacci sequence, the size of the blocks in each iteration is the aggregated size of the blocks in the previous iteration.

Aside from its role in the iterative process, the division of the sculptural forms into building blocks is also a nod to the culture of repair. I reference the theory of atomism, proposed by Democritus, where small universal parts create a diversity of unique configurations. Repairability, in this sense, not only offers ease, but also constant change, reinvention and excitement. The silver-painted seams are informed by Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery. I focus on aspects of breakage and repair and aspire to treat these facts with optimism as if they were coveted pieces of jewelry.

Based in Chicago, Illinois, Nurit Pazner is a multidisciplinary artist who works between painting and sculpture. She makes low-relief collage and found-object sculpture — wall art ranging in size from refrigerator size to monitor size, to tabletop objects, the size of a cocktail napkin.

Pazner’s interests in waste with respect to consumerism and the value of labor have informed her selection of symbolically charged materials. She has been sourcing cardstock and plastic from boxes of frozen pizza, body lotion and other consumer packaged goods and combining them with acrylics, wood, and aluminum composite panels. Her visual references are grounded in the outdoor scenery around Chicago: landmarks, neighborhoods, and spring in the Midwest. She creates whimsical configurations of realistic figures with layers, soft curves and vibrant colors.

In her process, Pazner utilizes a variety of tools including paint brushes, precision scissors, a rotary carving tool, photo editing software, and a vinyl cutter — drawing from her training in art and computer science. Coming from a technology background, she had been developing software for architectural design, market research and financial systems, while maintaining her studio practice.

Pazner earned her BSc in computer science and MS in management, and later continued her education in painting and art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).