Paradigm Gallery + Studio is pleased to present Watch Me Backflip, a solo exhibition featuring the work of mixed media and fibers artist Kelly Kozma through June 1st. Watch Me Backflip embraces ideas of reusing material, interconnectedness, and the significance of the smallest interaction on a much larger environment. Entering her 14th year working with Paradigm, Kozma will be unveiling a massive culmination documenting her career and process-intensive work. The artist is celebrating her personal relationships, archiving methods, and resilience with an impressive 22-foot circumference installation comprised of 35,000 hand-stitched circles cut from various repurposed materials. The cosmic work titled Iguana & Myrrh, Magma & Reef, consists of everyday objects like greeting cards, food packaging, and thread expertly woven and given new life as bursts of color and pattern in the largest scale the artist has ever attempted. Kozma is purposefully engaging in a minimal-waste practice where even paper scraps and loose threads from the installation will find new life within over 20 mixed media works that will call to the large assemblage. As she stitches these lovingly collected pieces, Kozma creates connections between the people in her life and the objects she interacts with, inspiring mindfulness against overconsumption and emotional apathy.
For more than a decade, Kozma has been recognizing the beauty that comes in often overlooked ephemera, like the encouraging messages from cough drop wrappers or the shimmer of toothpaste packaging. Piece by piece, she saves any colorful or textured box that she encounters, even though most are expected to be discarded after their original use.
In the early days, she did not have a project in mind for her scraps, but she was driven by the urge to resurrect these remnants and explore the potential they unknowingly hold. Over the years, these collections accumulated in her studio, filling jars, drawers, and shelves, patiently waiting for the right time to be useful again. As the jars built up, so did the momentum in Kozma’s creativity as she let go of practical limitations and followed her instinct as she decided to embark on a mammoth project in 2022.
Circles of cut paper were collected in groups; groups of circles were threaded together to make squares; squares were patched together to make a quilt until all panels covered the floor of Kozma’s studio three years later. All of that gathering, cutting, arranging, and stitching precedes a sort of personal pinnacle that marks a new chapter in Kozma’s career. She states, “This show is an embodiment of everything that has led to this moment: the good, the bad, and the scary. It has all been a part of me, and that’s why it works.” Kozma highlights her materials as catalogs of her daily interactions, like drinking her favorite soft drinks or folding paper stars with her family. Visitors cannot deny the meticulous nature of the work and the obvious labor of love that each piece in the exhibition exemplifies. Each is a compression of time that has taught Kozma patience, discipline, and how to trust the creative process. As she sews, she can meditate on the individuals who in some way or another contributed to her work, whether it is the friend who mailed a holiday card to her or the individual who printed the CMYK test strip on the bottom of the cereal box.
In Watch Me Backflip, Kozma is calling for connection. She brings beauty and meaning to forgotten and discarded scraps to combat the epidemic of trash and isolation that is all too prevalent in daily life. Her ability to see the potential in everything around her is contagious and hopeful.
