Renata Stein: Lost & Found - Artist Statement

My artistic process begins as a dialogue with materials. I am collecting and salvaging the discarded detritus of urban life, such as weathered, wrinkled and torn fragments carelessly thrown away on sidewalks; or flattened, rusted metal odds and ends embedded in the pavement. These objects all have their own histories, which become fused together through the process of assembling them into works of art. 

The vast collection of flotsam and fragments I have gathered over the years includes disused cultural artifacts, archival and library rejects, old letters and books, and random papers and ephemera. 

In recent years, my work has also incorporated natural elements such as leaves, branches, sand and stones. 

Fragments are a symptom of our torn and broken world, which seems to get more catastrophically torn apart every day. Though it is only one step toward mending the brokenness of our lives, perhaps the act of joining various disjointed elements of our splintered experience together, ultimately forming a new reality, can generate a sliver of hope.

 

- Renata Stein, 2026

 

Pictured: Renata Stein - Unraveling 

Mixed media

17" x 12"

2025