Foster Beach

I am interested in the value of labor with respect to consumerism and waste. Specifically, I consider the relationship between waste and labor. My working thesis is that knowing the history of the object – how it came to be – makes it more desirable. And that desirability is the factor that keeps objects from going to waste.

I treat the process of making as a feature of the object – a defining characteristic, equal in importance to other attributes, such as texture, color and shape. I use thick, visible layers in my collage to convey a stepped progression, a series of individual tasks. I approach the physical form as a record of the invisible memory of the object.

Just as negative space defines the shape of the subject, trash defines human behavior. In developing my artwork, I collect packages of post-consumer products, and then narrow my selection based on colors and texts. My intent is to reframe the scraps from by-products to art supplies. I shift from seeing the branding on a box of frozen pizza to realizing its place in color theory and trompe l’oeil techniques; the marketing messages get rearranged out of context into random snapshots of my mind at the time I made the piece, self-portraits of sorts.

The landmarks of Chicago provide an outline for my work, as they anchor the cityscape to its placement in history. I derived this collage from photos I took in Edgewater, at the lakefront trail at Foster Beach.

Wallpapers available for download: digital wallpapers formatted to support high resolution phone and tablet displays.

Email Nurit at [email protected] with FOSTERBEACH in the subject line to receive access to the wallpaper image files.

Foster Beach Phone Wallpaper and Foster Beach Tablet Wallpaper © 2025 by Nurit Pazner are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/