Katie Ries: Working with Paper

When local artist and University of Tennessee graduate student Katie Ries was an undergraduate at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, she had an idea for employing used teabags in a sculpture. The amount of teabags needed was so great that her friends were conscripted to save them for her. The work involved in assembling the sculpture required assistance, so a local thrift shop with which Ries was involved began trading sculpture construction labor for goods.

After folding the teabag envelopes into triangles and layering them over each other in a color gradation from green to yellow, the envelopes were transformed into a dragon’s cape. They were then stitched onto a long rectangle of fabric that can be worn, or exhibited two-dimensionally on a wall.

After that project was completed, Ries received her Bachelor of Arts degree, and the Nashville native relocated to Knoxville. She is now studying in UT’s printmaking department and has ideas for creating work not only with the leftover teabag envelopes but also with other food-packaging materials, which have become her primary tools in the sculpture medium.

While working at the Tomato Head, she began saving the brightly colored onion bag labels that were covered with naively iconic images of the United States, ranging from Kit Carson to stereotypical hillbilly images.

Ries cut the onion bag labels into the shape of fish scales, and used them as the surface treatment for an intricately designed, sculpted mermaid tail. The lifesize tail was assembled by hand at the narrow end, then with sewing machine once the structure was large enough to allow access. The finished sculpture could be worn or exhibited suspended by fish wire.

In a more simplistic approach to recycling food packaging as a material for producing art, Ries collected colorful empty snack food bags — mainly potato chips and other dry snacks. The material, lighter than paper but fairly resilient, was sewn into a simple quilt. Rows of packaged foods displayed in stores might not make most people consciously contemplate graphic design and its relationship with art, or the human relationship with food production, but when taken out of its normal context, the absurdity with which food is marketed can be appreciated. Bright colors that attract the eye are employed in amusingly similar ways to promote disparate items. Silly catchphrases are presented in overly dynamic font.  Packaging information is as superfluous as the junk food the package contains.

There is a great deal of reflection in Reis’ views of the materials with which she works.  “The very idyllic images of agricultural labor on food labels mediate our image of food,” says Reis. “The image of a beautiful woman with a basket of raisins — that is not how food gets picked!”

The projects on which she is presently working as part of her graduate studies also probe the human relationship with the earth. Rag paper is buried in her compost heap to encourage rot and insect damage before being used for printing. Ries constructs reliquary boxes with her prints and fills them with dirt collected near the highway underpasses where she lives. She says she wonders how long the structures we create can function without attention and repairs — a future Earth without humans is a common thread Ries uses in the conceptual process of her work.

Reis and exhibit partner Hillary Williams are planning an entertaining exhibit for Gallery 1010’s First Friday in March. The artists will rent a snack vending machine to fill with art packages.  Graphic Art majors and an assortment of other locals are designing products to be installed and sold from the machine, which is similar to the popular Art-O-Mat machines that are located in museums and galleries across the country.

Additional work exhibited will include Ries’ prints of mock lottery tickets. Each ticket will ask a question, and the answer will be covered with spray chalk. To uncover the answer, the chalk can be washed away with a wet rag. The questions and answers are formatted to present subversive messages.

The variety of ideas, people and media used to put this show together should produce a thoughtful exhibit not to be missed during the usual mayhem of Knoxville’s First Fridays.

Reis is also one of the founders and directors of The Birdhouse, a performance and exhibition gallery located at 4th and Gill. The Birdhouse has regular First Friday openings and music performances announced throughout the month.

First Friday reception for Katie Ries and Hillary Williams
Friday, March 7
Gallery 1010 (113 South Gay St.) / 9 p.m.  Gallery hours are Thursday through Saturday, noon to 4 p.m.