Red Hook Exhibit Showcases Artists Transforming Brooklyn Trash

Trash past and present is given an artistic spin in a new gallery exhibit in Red Hook. “Taking in the Trash” at the Sweet Lorraine Gallery opened on Friday and features the work of artists Katarina Jerinic and Karen Mainenti.

While the two artists knew each other’s work, the show is the first time they are exhibiting together. Both show pieces referencing the environment, waste, and recycling, and both sourced materials by picking up trash in the city, but they have different approaches. Karen Mainenti’s “Empty Vessels” uses refuse washed up on the shores of Dead Horse Bay and presents immaculate, historically accurate new labels on the trashed glass bottles. Katarina Jerinic’s “Litter Landscapes” is a screen print series using contemporary waste as the canvas for botanical prints with a forlorn bent.

In hanging the work in the third floor gallery space, the artists found common narratives, and a bit of humor. A tableau of fast food includes French fry and chicken nugget wrappers screen printed by Jerinic paired with a 1950s Pepsi bottle brought back to life by Mainenti. Their work is paired throughout much of the space, with glass bottles presented on shelves and plinths and the screen prints hung in pristine white frames.

For her series, Mainenti found all of her trash on Dead Horse Bay, telling Brownstoner, “All my work centers around the ideals of feminine perfection and explores how it is commercialized and marketed. Dead Horse Bay is this amazing time capsule for materials.” The bottles and jars she gathers largely date to the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Time and water swept off the original labels, which means hours of deep research into products and advertising of the time to be able to identify and date the bottles and accurately depict the label as a bright contrast to the weathered vessels. “When I first started the project I was excited when I found something that was very pristine. But, I realized I want people to know that they are recovered from this place and I am starting to bring in more things that have the sand, the dirtiness to them, so it is apparent they are not a fresh and new thing.”

Katarina Jerinic’s project grew out of a winter residency at Wave Hill in the Bronx where, with few plants in bloom, she was drawn to sources provided by the horticultural staff. “All of my work borrows from the natural sciences to interpret the built landscape,” she told Brownstoner. At Wave Hill, plants with melancholy common names, including depressed clearweed and bleeding heart, caught her attention. She experimented with drawings and screen printing botanical references to the plants.

After a return to her Bushwick studio, the jump from serene botanical garden to trash-filled sidewalks propelled the evolution of the work. She picked up litter, usually for its color or shape, and carefully matched the color of the actual plant with the predominant color of the trash. The work is purposefully encased in thick white frames. “Putting the work in frames connects it back to the original botanical reference and people pressing plants as a way to preserve and study them,” Jerinic told Brownstoner. The spotless presentation contrasts with the trash it encloses.

Visitors will have the chance to view the work through April 26 and take in some talks and tours during the run of the show. Juliette Spertus, an urban designer with NYCHA and co-author of the Zero Waste Design Guidelines, will join in conversation with the artists on April 19. Historian Miriam Sicherman will present “Everyday Artifacts, Forgotten Histories: Exploring Dead Horse Bay” on Saturday, April 26.

Details on the events and the opening hours for the exhibition at 183 Lorraine Street can be seen in a gallery Instagram post. Additional hours are available by appointment.

[Photos by Susan De Vries unless noted otherwise]

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