The Gallery @ 310
AN ARCHEOLOGY OF SMALL WONDERS
Mixed Media by Liz Curtin
October 26, 2026 - January 24, 2027
I am both a maker and a collector. Growing up on Long Island, when there were still stretches of woods, farms and freedom to wander, I nurtured a love of nature and the treasures it offered: the perfect twig, a fallen feather, an abandoned nest. Collecting soon became more than a pastime. It grew into a ritual, a way of life, a calling.
Today, my happiest moments are out on the streets of New York City foraging for what others have overlooked. I search out “lost” objects that most people dismiss as garbage, gems that litter gutters, hide beneath cars, linger in abandoned doorways, or appear on garbage collection days. Everywhere I go, I find materials waiting to be transformed.
This is my archeology, the act of taking what is discarded and through attention, touch and thought, turning it into something alive with meaning. My love of natural elements, ephemera, odd vintage items and rusted objects has only deepened over time, evolving into a finely tuned practice of transformation.
Bringing together disparate objects is at the heart of my work. Each piece is a quiet transmutation, a way of honoring what was once unseen and reveling in its beauty.
LIZ CURTIN
October 2026
ARTIST’S BIO
I am a maker and collector of found objects, vintage treasures rusty bits, nature objects and textiles. I explore new techniques often inventing my own language with the things I make.
I call myself a mixed media artist but really I am an alchemist, always experimenting and trying different materials and techniques, mixing things up until they become what they are meant to be.
I was born in The Bronx in 1953 and spent my first five years moving around because of my father’s job as a flight dispatcher for TWA. Kansas City, Newfoundland and Bombay, India finally settling in Levittown, Long Island. Living in India was magical in many ways and colored my life with memories, photographs, artwork and furniture my parents brought home to the states.
I started making art at an early age and tried my hand at many different things until finally settling on mixed media.
Some people might look at my body of work over the past 50 years and be confused. But a thread runs through it and ties it all together. Color, line, texture, paper, textiles, mixed media, found objects and other elements play with abandon on the surface, in space, in the layers.
The parts become the whole connecting disparate objects, materials, thoughts, feelings and emotions to make intriguing works that blend natural elements with vintage, found and artist made items.
After teaching art for almost 40 years, mostly at senior centers in NYC, Curtin retired as the Director of Making Art Work at Carter Burden Network/Covello Older Adult Center in December 2023.
