June 6 - July 19, 2025
108|Contemporary is proud to exhibit the work of Joe Kissinger and Sarah Robl in, An Unlikely Pairing: Strange Creatures, Rare Specimens, and Threaded Portals on view June 6 – July 19, 2025. This exhibition will showcase individual and collaborative wood turning and fiber work with lively colors and intricate details.
Exhibition Opening
Friday, June 6, 2025 from 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Sarah Robl Artist Talk
Sunday, June 8, 2025 at 1:00 pm
Joe Kissinger Artist Talk
Saturday, June 21, 2025 at 1:00 pm
Workshop with Sarah Robl
Saturday, July 12, 2025 at 1:00 pm
When Joe Kissinger and Sarah Robl first met at an art event at 108 Contemporary in 2022, they couldn’t have predicted the creative journey that would follow. Kissinger, a woodturner known for transforming traditional woodturning into imaginative sculpture, introduced Robl to the lathe—sparking not only a new skill but the beginning of a lasting friendship.
Kissinger’s work in this exhibition delves into the strange and unknown, producing outlandish and unique “Strange Creatures” that feel very otherworldly. The “Rare Specimens” come from turned and bent woods, plastics and metals and other materials. Robl’s work, by contrast, finds beauty in the everyday, the repetitive, and the routine—her intricate, thread-based designs celebrating order, rhythm, and quiet reflection. While their subject matter and mediums differ, their collaboration is grounded in a shared love of color, precision, and meticulous craftsmanship. Both artists pay close attention to detail—Kissinger through the unexpected shapes, colors and textures and a steadfast rule “Always Make Something Different”, and Robl through the deliberate layering of threads and hues in her textile based work.
One of the most rewarding elements of this collaboration for the pair has been the element of surprise—passing pieces back and forth, never quite knowing how the other will respond. Each exchange reveals something unexpected: a new shape, a shift in texture, or a fresh perspective. Their materials have become invitations rather than boundaries, allowing each to expand their own creative practice in response to the other’s vision.
An Unlikely Pairing is a conversation between their worlds: the playful and the meditative, the uncanny and the orderly. Together their work invites viewers to pause, look closely, and find beauty in both the strange and the familiar.
Joe Kissinger is a woodworker who has lived and worked in Tulsa, Oklahoma for most of his life. He attended Columbus College of Art and Design, Northeastern State University, and Oklahoma University, and has worked in various artistic practices including painting, sculpture, metalsmithing, and ceramics. The skills learned from those disciplines allow him to explore new possibilities in his constructed and wood-turned objects. Fed by the relentless pursuit of novelty, Kissinger is committed to constant reinvention and aims to surprise and amaze the viewer. Joe Kissinger has displayed work in several galleries and regional shows and has had multiple works featured in publications of the national Woodworker West Magazine.
Sarah Robl is a mixed media artist born in Winfield, Kansas. She grew up fascinated with the arts and attended every class she could find, often convincing the instructors to disregard the minimum age requirements so she could attend. She worked as an arts educator until the birth of her first child, after which she began to focus on her studio practice. Having the time and space to play with a variety of mediums, she became enthralled with fiber arts, often using thread on paper. She is influenced by her mother’s needlework and by the realm and tradition of textile arts. Robl earned her BA in Art from Fort Hays State University. She has exhibited her work throughout the United States and Canada and has received numerous awards for her innovative use of materials. She lives in Owasso, Oklahoma, with her husband. and two daughters.
This project was supported in part by the Oklahoma Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Oklahoma and the National Endowment for the Arts.