MEL ANDRINGA
Footballs/Baked Potatoes, Jigsaw collage, 16" x 22", 2000

Mel Andringa received his MA (1971) and MFA (1978) from the University of Iowa with an emphasis in Multimedia/Intermedia. In 1975, he founded The Drawing Legion, a performance art company that toured original productions in over 50 U.S. cities and the Netherlands. In 1990, Mel Andringa and F. John Herbert founded Legion Arts, a multidisciplinary arts organization presenting contemporary art at CSPS, a 115-year old Czech meeting hall, in Cedar Rapids.

Mel noticed that many commercially produced jigsaw puzzles are cut frome one dye, producing pieces that are the same shape, no matter what images are printed on them. He began recombining pictures from different puzzles to make new images and new meanings that often play with or subvert the subject matter of the original puzzle pictures.

Mel Andringa and Legion Arts webpage