Collection: Heather Oelklaus – Cattywampus

“Cattywampus” is a collection of objects created to prompt contemplation on the skewed aspects of society. During the pandemic, I took great pleasure spending vast amounts of time gazing out my window from the safety of my home. The outside world seemed to have flipped upside down. This simple idea inspired the work for this exhibition.

From camera obscura sculptures, photographic weavings, found ephemera collages, pinhole and anaglyph photographs—each piece serves as a mirror reflecting the complexities and contradictions within ourselves and the world around us. By embracing the whimsical and the absurd, I aim to challenge our conventional perceptions. 

Each work in this exhibit resonates with a motif of how we travel through this world and what we see along the edges of our path. The visual distortions in these works, which often appear upside down and backwards, positive and negative, reflect the complexities and contradictions in our life. 

"Cattywampus" is an exploration of the confused, the imperfect, and the askew nature of human nature.