A new exhibition examining themes of care and transformation has opened in Rye, encouraging visitors to reconsider which objects deserve preservation.

Titled Finders Keepers, the showcase is being staged by EDE Projects alongside Blanco Gallery.

It features collaborative works by artists Eloise Dethier-Eaton and Charly Helyar, who examine ideas around worth, recollection and conservation through pieces constructed from discarded matter.

The exhibition, curated by Adela Blanco, puts forward the argument that significance emerges through attentiveness, memory and effort rather than being innate to any particular item.

According to Ms Blanco, the display demonstrates how nurturing can produce transformative effects.

She noted that both creators illustrate how value is not built-in but rather develops through focus, expertise and the connections people form with possessions, locations and each other.

Their approaches invite audiences to pause, observe with greater attention and reconsider what merits keeping.

Belgo-British practitioner Eloise Dethier-Eaton collects abandoned wooden panels and applies trompe-l’œil methods to generate optical impressions resembling marble or timber surfaces.

This approach questions conventional understandings of worth and the hierarchy assigned to different materials.

Charly Helyar, whose career has included paramedic work alongside her artistic practice, reconstructs fragmented furniture into compact shrine-like structures that contain oil paintings executed on copper and linen.

These works capture transitory instances from domestic life while elevating ordinary experiences.

Ms Helyar explained that the initial discussions about this venture occurred during the final phase of her master’s programme at City and Guilds of London Art School, making its eventual realisation particularly meaningful.

Both contributors are infusing fresh significance into materials heading for disposal, converting what others dismiss as refuse into pieces carrying fresh interpretation and emotional weight.

The presentation also responds to Rye’s established traditions of gathering, searching and reclaiming items.

Ms Dethier-Eaton observed that significant energy infuses artworks produced from discovered objects, combining the history embedded within them, the fortune involved in locating them and the possibilities for interpretation by subsequent finders.

These overlapping elements can endow discovered objects with distinctive personality and appeal.

The exhibition runs until September 20 at EDE Projects, located at 4 Cinque Ports Street in Rye.