Scott Zieher's 'Totems & Cantos' Collage Exhibition at Ampersand Bookshop & Gallery

Scott Zieher presented 'Totems & Cantos,' an exhibition of collage works created over five years, at Ampersand Bookshop & Gallery from March 19 to April 24, 2016. Located at 2916 NE Alberta Street, Suite B in Portland, Oregon, the show featured 18 pieces including 'Totem #2' (2012) and 'Wave Pattern' (2015). Zieher's compositions juxtapose ordinary objects like gloves, toothbrushes, and barber poles into fantastical figures described as robots and occult figurines. The works employ displacement and re-contextualization rather than zany connections, creating decorative, puzzling, and humorous effects. A series called 'Concretude' (2015) incorporates fragments of type and collage, alluding to concrete poetry. Reviewers noted the collages' dreamlike quality and meticulous craftsmanship using X-Acto knives, with visual elements appearing both deliberate and accidental. The exhibition prompted comparisons to Georges Méliès' magical films and Bertrand Russell's writings on imagination.