The Artist
Kari Bergen
Assemblage Shadow Boxes, Collage & Jewelry
A long time lover of the strange and obscure, I've spent my whole life cultivating a collection oddities and ephemera. In 2010 I named my collection "Ephemera Obscura" and it took on a life of its own, leading to the creation of my ephemera shop and eventually to the realization of the art potential all around me. It's the stories I sense in the objects and ephemera themselves that inspire my art, I just have to listen. I love to breathe new life and meaning into items that would otherwise go unappreciated.
Born in Illinois, I grew up immersed in the world of living history and artistic pursuit while participating in reenactments with my family. Creativity was a way of life for me, but experiencing the duality of time --myself in the present interacting with the past-- thrilled my youthful curiosity and fired my imagination. I wanted to live in that in-between place, and so I did, soon finding my first passion, paper ephemera. It influenced the trajectory of my artistic path, leading me back to the place where my art first emerged, the in-between place at the intersection of the past and the present, entwining many paths into the one that is Ephemera Obscura.