Press
A sense of intimacy and loss pervades the work; fragments of memory and belief are brought together to create a hybrid form that negates the sequential nature of reading, replacing it with suggestive echoes of inner states of praise, worship, and prayer.
David Revere McFadden, Slash: Paper Under The Knife, 2009
In addition to the obsessive quality evident in the creation of these pieces, there are also the fascinations with family, history and place. ... Carole P. Kunstadt’s Sacred Poem XVI, XXVII, and LII, in which pages from an 1844 Parish Psalmody are variously cut, threaded, covered in gold-leaf, and sewn together to create gorgeous new texts...
Sarah Blumberg, Gallery Crawl, November 4, 2009 (read the whole article)
In the catalog Mr. McFadden relates contemporary paper cutting to Japanese katagami stencils, Mexican paper picado and the medieval practice of excising illuminations from manuscripts. (This last reference is especially relevant to the creatively altered books in "Slash", which include an encylcopedia, an 1844 parish psalmody and a white-supremacist tome.)
Karen Rosenberg, The New York Times, October 20, 2009 (read the whole article)
Additional press about Slash: Paper Under the Knife:
- How a Field Trip Inspired My Next Art Purchase (from Wall Spin: The Zatista Blog)
- From the catalogue of the 5th International Book and Paper Arts Triennial (from Edizioni)
- Carole P. Kunstadt (from indigoallison: an Artit's Particular Eye)
Kunstadt's solo show is entitled "The Poetics of Collage," and this seems especially apt, since one tends to think of Dickinson in the same breath as Joseph Cornell, whose collages and box assemblages comprise a similarly hermetic realm. Thus while the serenity and intimate scale of her work may make her something of an anomaly amid the sensation-seeking clamor of the contemporary art scene, Kunstadt keeps exceedingly good company.
Familiar Objects Acquire New Meanings in the Collages of Carole P. Kunstadt
Ed McCormack Gallery & Studio, February/March 2008. (read the whole article, PDF, 1 page)
...a group exhibit features Carole P. Kunstadt's sensitive and subtle combinations of painting, collage and sewing. Kunstadt believes that in spite of the impermanence of life, we all want to leave our mark.
Text and Context at Gallery 705, Pocono Record, February 29, 2008
Works selected for this exhibition are provocative and tactile in composition and concept, and evoke a palimpset-like layering of ideas and imagery. ... Highlights of the exhibition include: Carole P. Kunstadt uses a Parish Psalmody dated 1844 in here Sacred Poem Series to evoke an ecumenical or poetic offering while suggesting the power of a sacred spiritual repositroy. The use of stitching emphasizes the repetition of the lines of the diminutive sacle of the printed text. The discoloration and fragility of the paper allude to the passage of time, as well as the age and history of the reconstructed book pages.
Arts & Literature Laboratory Opening Saturday, Connecticut Art Scene, May 10, 2007
Of the collages that make up a significant portion of the exhibit, some hark back to the pioneering experimants of several European artists early in the 20th century. For example, Carole Kunstadt's Plein Tarif and Beijing are compact pieces that juxtapose fragments of postage stamps, advertising logos, plant materials and other small objects in a manner that recalls collages made by Braque and Picasso.
Artists Take Text to New Heights in A Strong, Intriguing Jurored Show At The Sawtooth Building, Words, Letters, Numbers,
Tom Patterson, Winston-Salem Journal, November 15, 1998