Emily Holt

Lossless Found

March 1st - 29th, 2025

This month the Pop Up is an extension of JMG’s featured solo artist Emily Holt‘s Lossless Found exhibition.

Exhibition Statement

My process relies on improvisation, adaptation, play and discovery.  I am inspired by colors, textures and shapes that I observe in the world.  From brick designs and arched windows to a newspaper ground into the sidewalk, these details sink into my consciousness and slowly make their way into my art.

Lossless Found is a collection of objects made from paper and found material to suggest open-ended narratives on themes civic, architectural, and cartographic.  The multi-layered paper pieces are recycled from a previous large-scale work. I cut, fold, stitch, glue, hide, reveal, reverse, tuck, embed, layer, build and destroy my previous work. I then condense these recycled pieces into a “bouillon cube” of visual elements. The term “lossless” is associated with a data compression technique, in which original data is reconstructed without any loss of information.  

I find artifacts on my walks. My habit is to observe the ground and notice discarded items scattered along my path.  I hunt, search, scavenge, take, receive, dig, gather and glean from what is unwanted or thrown away. Brightly colored wire, broken pottery, jewelry boxes and toys are inherently beautiful, but also offer utility as raw material for making art. These objects are not lost or forgotten; they are found.

The final pieces are stages or theatrical sets. Untold stories are layered into the objects. The viewer is cast as an actor and their lines are internal and unheard.