jwesterbeke's blog

December 5th, 2008-January 16th, 2009 Opening Reception: Friday December 5th, 5pm-8:30pm Artists Clare Parry and Julia Westerbeke have teamed up to create “The Wonder Parlor,” an interactive installation in the Teen Studio of The New Children’s Museum. A seemingly ordinary collection of thrift-store furniture has become the site of sprawling black-and-white collages that pour out of cabinets and hide inside drawers. A flock of birds soar out of an antique side table. A collection of bats absconds under a tattered chair near sumptuous drips of jewelry and coiling snakes. Fantastical and absurd creatures abound, among them human-animal hybrids and light bulbs with legs. Throughout this installation, the visual puns of surrealism are given a contemporary spin with collages that mind the gap between the strange and the beautiful.