Menjunje/Amalgamation

September 23 - November 16, 2026

in the Wedge Gallery

Opening Reception: October 6, 6 - 8 PM (RSVP appreciated)

Reflecting on identity, artist Shelly “Lola” Freund utilizes brightly colored renditions of her own fingerprints and objects reminiscent of family keepsakes. By using her own body as the subject of her work, Freund asks us to consider how identity is categorized and interpreted in our modern world.  

Freund’s sweeping canvases feature vibrant pinks and blues that shimmer with the additions of rhinestones, glitter, and copper. As light bounces from one canvas to the next, the viewer is taken on a journey through the artist’s own diasporic origins. Whorls of string create pathways, as she weaves between English, Spanish, and Hebrew, reflected amongst the titles.

Freund’s painted geographies ask us to engage with questions of multiculturalism, social tensions, and attempt to identify the line between assimilation and acculturation.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Lola uses painting, installation, and mixed media to address the bilingual experience, and the diaspora she grew up in. Drawing upon her Middle Eastern and Central American backgrounds, her work seeks to rebuild the feeling of “home”, and finding meaning in the in-between spaces. The main focus of her work is the investigation of language and identity.

She infuses her work with maximalism and playfulness. Utilizing materials commonly associated with construction such as joint compound, plywood, or wall paint and blends these with objects that she associates with her diasporic origins like family keepsakes, rhinestones, and glitter. The juxtaposition of these materials reflects her experience as a multicultural and bilingual person. Bright colors and reflective textures are a recognized symbol of the artificial. She enjoys using them in excess as an attempt to build new memories, and a new identity. One that is neither here nor there, yet deeply rooted in its diasporic origins.

In her most recent work, she reflects on the ways in which identity is recorded, categorized, and interpreted. Each painting starts with one of her fingerprints, enlarged and distorted through a variety of colors, textures, and materials. As a result, the work displays the complexities of a diasporic identity and how it exists in a constant state of in-betweenness.

She invites the viewer to read each line and whorl as a pathway, each curve a route. Abstract and map-like, these paintings are personal geographies that lead her community to a home in between. Using the titles of her paintings as space for narrative, she combines English, Spanish and Hebrew into a new dialect. And she often titles her works after memories and foods from home, or cultural objects. At its core, the work is a menjunje, or an amalgamation, of languages, foods, and memories that celebrate her transcultural journey, while acknowledging what is lost in translation. 

SHELLY "LOLA" FREUND

Shelly “Lola” Freund is a painter and mixed media artist based in Boston. Born and raised in El Salvador in a Jewish household, her work investigates themes of diaspora, language, and identity. She holds a BFA in Painting and Intermedia from Elon University, and an MFA in Studio Art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. She has exhibited at various group exhibitions and juried shows, namely 2026 Emerging Artists Exhibit (Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA), Country (Attleboro Arts Museum, Attleboro, MA), Menjunje (The Drawing Rooms, Jersey City, NJ), and Art Expo New York 2026 (Mido Galeria, New York City, NY). One of her pieces, veo veo que ves? is part of Elon University’s Permanent Art Collection.