Metal insect sculpture with a wooden body, wire legs, and metal flowers, set on a light-colored surface against a plain background.

JOANNE GUTHRIE

Forging New Life From Forgotten Materials

Contemporary sculptures, installations, and mixed-media artworks created from reclaimed industrial and natural materials.

A woman in a denim shirt and black pants stands next to a large metal sculpture of a flamingo decorated with blue flowers.

My Practice

I create contemporary sculptures and mixed-media artworks from reclaimed industrial and natural materials. My work moves beyond individual pieces and into collections and exhibitions that explore our relationship with materials, consumption, and the natural world.

As a journeyman welder, I developed a close relationship with industrial materials, how they're made, used, and eventually left behind. That experience continues to shape everything I create.

I work with salvaged metal, handmade paper, natural pigments, found objects, and other reclaimed materials, along with what can be gathered or foraged. I'm drawn to what already exists around us, the overlooked, the discarded, and the natural, and how these materials can be transformed through making.

Through this process, I explore balance, renewal, and a more thoughtful way of creating within the world we live in.

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The Collections

These completed bodies of work are created from reclaimed materials and developed as distinct investigations into transformation, material process, and form. Each collection approaches these ideas from a different perspective, building a varied but connected body of work that reflects an ongoing engagement with material history and the natural world.

A framed watercolor painting of a deer on a beige wall above a wooden table with art supplies, including brushes and a wooden palette, and a green plant nearby.

Underneath It All

A metal sculpture of a bee perched on a honeycomb-shaped base.

Bird’s Eye View

Sculpture of metal dragonflies with red and black wings on black metal bodies, sitting on and around a large, rough wooden block, against a white wall.

Elemental Daydreams

A sculpture resembling a pineapple made from metallic pipes and tools, with a spiky top and a round base, on a light-colored surface with a plain white background.

In the Studio

Alongside my completed collections, I am currently developing new bodies of work that continue to explore transformation, vulnerability, and material memory.

These are my current studio projects, works in progress shaped through gathering, experimentation, and the evolving relationship between material and process.

Occupying Space
Work using reclaimed plastic collected over many years, exploring accumulation, presence, and environmental impact.

Reclaimed Threads
Sculptural work using felt, invasive plant matter, and barbed wire, exploring tension between growth, control, and resilience.

A Social Affair
An evolving exploration of material, interaction, and shared experience.

Each project is still becoming, unfolding through making and return to the studio table where ideas take form..

A miniature step ladder with four steps, painted orange with visible wear, viewed from front against a plain white background.
A miniature step ladder with four steps, painted orange with visible wear, viewed from front against a plain white background.


Custom Sculpture & Commissioned Artwork

Every commission begins with a conversation.

I create original sculptures and mixed-media artworks using reclaimed materials, developing each piece in response to specific places, ideas, and stories. Through a material-driven process, discarded and natural elements are transformed into meaningful and lasting works of art.

Whether you're considering a private commission, public artwork, or site-specific installation, I'd love to hear from you.

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Sculpture of a stylized bird made from black and silver metal pieces, mounted on a wooden stand.