WORDS TO LIVE BY
“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.”
― Henry Miller
The latest collage news and inspiration!
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NEWS
Yes, it was an absolute decision because when I was doing my thesis, I did a lot of research to decide who I was going to do my thesis on, and that’s when I discovered the collage books of Max Ernst. Really, it opened up surrealism for me in a way that I hadn’t in fact accessed before. This was a language, and you could create new worlds or new realities using this language, and how fantastic? Max Ernst was creating all these dream scenarios and archetypes of mythic weeds that I just felt passionately drawn to and I wanted to make art that was inspired by him, because I think that’s the real way that you pay tribute. - Artist Penny Slinger Left the Male Gaze in the 70s - via Interview Magazine
Blending expressive paintings, collage, cut-up poetry and textiles, Beavis crafts vibrant pieces which emerge via an intuitive process of reworking and rearranging shapes and colours. - Multidisciplinary artist and musician Hailey Beavis opens first solo exhibition - via The Edinburgh Reporter
Man Ray’s puzzling photographs of out-of-focus collages or Salvador Dalí’s jarring paintings of melting clocks and elongated elephants were typical of the form. - Try this ordinary tool Dali and Man Ray used to jump-start their creativity - via Fast Company
Last winter, I discovered Gary Owens’ work on Instagram and was intrigued by his layered depictions that remind me of the starkness of early Hollywood films. Upon reading his statement, I learned that he creates these sculptural collages using images from antique magazines and artificial intelligence. While many photographers have dismissed the potential of A.I., I’ve always believed someone would do something remarkable with it. I admire artists who challenge the boundaries of photography, and Gary Owens is one of them. By using A.I. and other methods to collage images and then reshooting them with a pinhole camera, he ultimately transforms them back into photographs. - GARY OWENS: IN THE ROOM - via Lenscratch
Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage is the first large-scale exhibition dedicated to exploring collage by contemporary Black American artists such as Mark Bradford, Kerry James Marshall, Tschabalala Self, and Kara Walker. Featuring nearly 60 works by 49 artists, this exhibition celebrates the broad variety and complexity of Black identity in art. Building on a technique that has roots in European and American traditions, the diverse, intergenerational group of artists have created innovative works with pieces of paper, photographs, fabrics, and/or other salvaged materials. The bold compositions, created with an array of experimental techniques, offer poignant expressions of human experience, including fragmentation and reconstruction, shared history and memory, cultural hybridity, gender fluidity, and notions of beauty. - via The Phillips Collection, JULY 6–SEPTEMBER 22, 2024, Washington DC
PCC
A selection of challenge submissions from last week is up on our website and can be seen here, the image prompt for next week is available to download here
Our 2024 Workbook is out and available for sale on our website. Our weekly creative challenge remains free and open to everyone and everything, digital or analog artists, French or not. The workbook is an optional add-on for those who prefer to work with paper and don’t want to print our images themselves. Like every year, the book is designed so that you can either take it apart or create your collages in the book itself. Week numbers and image sources are on the back of each image, so even if your books falls apart at one point, you will always know what’s what!
And last but not least, have a look at and/or submit to our ‘other’ Instagram account Paris Collage Collective Unlimited where we showcase collages that have absolutely nothing to do with our weekly creative challenge.
If you have any news about exhibitions, publications or events you want so share with the community, please send an email with all relevant information and at least one link to a website or venue to: hello@pariscollagecollective.com