by Joshua Rievel. Photos via Instagram and Joshua Rievel.
Isabella Schubert-Jones is an artist, video maker, prop maker, sculptor, and recycler—and she now has her own exhibition at the great Center for Creative Reuse (214 N Lexington St). Schubert-Jones’s work is something that’s perplexed and amazed me since discovering it floating around on social media. What better location than the local hub of second hand materials and donated goods to present artworks reflecting the appreciation for the once disregarded?
By chance, fate, or poor communication with a friend, I ran into Schubert-Jones recently at The Squirrel Cage and I was able to ask about her art practices. She was pretty forward about using recycled materials and materials that were from the garbage.
Learning more about her approach and attitude towards creating gave me a higher appreciation and love for her work. It comes from a place of genuinely loving and practicing your craft, with keeping a certain DIY ethos with recycled materials. The use of limitations to a maximal effect with any object she finds left behind gives them a second life.
Her sculptures are like an almost nightmarish Nickelodeon ‘90s cartoon, as much as they’re something out of Paul McCarthy’s Bossy Burger video. It’s like Schubert-Jones pulled the characters out of a Ryan Trecartin video and turned them into animal sculptures. (Editor’s Note: I couldn’t help thinking of another Pittsburgh creator, Jack Stauber, when I saw Schubert-Jones’s work). These subjects are morphed through the lens of uncanny, disturbing, funny, and often beautiful. If any content creators are reading this, get Schubert-Jones a Youtube series with these art pieces.
Isabella Schubert-Jones’s uncanny sculptures will be up at Center for Creative Reuse through December 10, open daily from 11PM-5PM.
Joshua Rievel is a western Pennsylvania native active in the music and art scene in Pittsburgh for the better part of 15 years. They were also active in past DIY venues and micro-cinemas.
PETRICHOR 
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