Combing through flea markets, garage sales—even dumpsters—Tim Clare was literally seduced by the materials he uses to construct his work.

Clare nails pieces of old printed tins and metal trays to plywood, fusing Folk Art quilting traditions with Pop art constructions. Made with found, kitschy commercial images depicting a mythical agrarian-domestic America, his compositions mirror the storied, nostalgic past fabricated in advertising to sell products.

Clare subverts these idealized images with careful interventions and juxtapositions, revealing the hidden race and gender stereotypes that are a supporting element of this romanticized past.

By exposing a constructed ideal that stands in sharp contrast to a more complicated past, his work stirs authentic emotions of reminiscence for one’s place in family and cultural history.