“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”
― Natalie Babbitt
The latest collage news and inspiration!
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NEWS
The particular kind of observational photography I do has evolved organically from my studio practice. It might not be immediately apparent from looking through my books, but if I selected a set of images from each one to illustrate that point, the layered, collage-like compositions and predominantly flattened space would give away the interconnected conceptual and formal concerns. All of my projects are ongoing and cyclical, whether it is documentary photography or collages made in the studio. The notion of place—and the historical and contemporary photographic representation of places—have been consistently central to my work - Image Cities - via Lens Culture
I had the idea for collage while browsing magazines offered on long-haul flights. Initially, I made drawings on these magazines, leaving them for the following travelers to enjoy. In fact, I love drawing, I spend a lot of time drawing. Another source of inspiration was the X-ray pictures made by my father, a radiologist, which gave me the idea of drawing on black background. When I found an album composed of black pages, I purchased it and filled it with collages, cut out of magazines, drawing over them. Such an album is like a small portable gallery! - 7 Questions for Senegalese Artist Soly Cissé on How the Rise of the West African Art Scene Is Reshaping Local Communities - via artnet
Things are slowing down for the summer, and not a lot is happening in the world of collage, so we will share a few older but still very much worthwhile reads, articles and interviews again:
Working with collage was a way for me to really challenge myself. A lot of my friends that do graffiti and street art primarily work with spray paint and acrylics. I'd done that for a lot of years and I thought to myself, "I want to try a different medium." Collage just spoke to me and I just thought it would be interesting to see what I could do with this medium. Working with glue sticks and paper was something that seemed attractive to me - Cey Adams: From Graffiti Vandal to Fine Artist - via Hypebeast
The collage artist's main goal is to design pieces that look as if they were digitally created in Photoshop. Due to his traditional process, the handmade, slightly vintage-looking nature of each collage evokes a distinct sense of nostalgia. As various worlds come together in the timeless works of art, viewers are able to feel as though they are part of a surreal world filled with vivid colors, pop art, captivating shapes, and unusual symbols that are sure to make onlookers stop and stare - Intricately Handmade Collages Offer a Seamless View of Otherworldly Scenes - via My Modern Met
In the new works on view at Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Sherman has collaged parts of her own face through digital manipulation tools to piece together the identities of various characters. In physicality, the portraits are about Sherman, but in reference to society at large, they are about modernity and the many fractured selves that lurk within it - Cindy Sherman’s freaky new portrait collages dissect the divided self - via Wallpaper
Also:
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
FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY - OLD & NEW
BERND REICHERT
I was born behind the Iron Curtain in Germany. Now I am living on the surreal shores of Belgium. I studied printmaking in Germany (Berlin, Magdeburg) and Ireland. After producing for many years limited edition prints in all forms, I stopped for a few years my art production and travelled the world extensively. Now I have moved my area of interest to collages and paintings.
I like to see myself as a kind of surrealist artist in the tradition of Leonor Fini, Eileen Agar and the likes. Probably slightly old-fashioned. My collages are a juxtaposition of elements, images and objects incoherent to each other, thereby exercising a de-contextualising form of violence on language and image alike. They contain a kind of strangeness, a disturbing element disquieting the spectator/reader who is confronted to a series of elements taken from one's everyday life which, being put one next to each other, provoke, suddenly, an incoherent situation, a source of obscurity and vagueness.
Time, the various cultural influences of the placed I travelled to and a Babel-like plethora of different languages are recurring aspects of my work. The collages combine found material, ranging from colourful images from art and fashion magazines to newspaper cut-outs I collected during the various journeys worldwide. The collages tell stories, often influenced by the current news, but also often containing an autobiographical element. Working with text and images I like to encourage the viewer to oscillate between reading and looking. It is about reusing, recycling and re-contextualising the overabundance of images and information we can choose from.
More here
SDRASWI
Sdraswi is my path to the beauty of the visible and the deep. I have fun and return to the essentials in a free and authentic way. I use original photographs, vintage magazines and current publications. Each piece I cut fits to express an idea, illustrate a thought or give graphic support to any text. The brave women who try again inspire me, the magic of change is feminine.
More here
GABRIELA SZULMAN
Gabriela finds her inspiration in memory and memories. She keeps a growing archive of ephemera that includes old photograph albums, postcards, technical manuals, illustrated dictionaries, vintage documents, her grandmother’s fashion magazines, knitting pattern books and scraps of writing among other things. Second-hand bookshops, junk shops, market stalls, attics and long-forgotten boxes are her treasure trove.
The layering of found imagery and memorabilia runs across all her creations, whether they be mixed media works on canvas, collages, greeting card designs, or decorative objects.
Her collage work emerges from a fusion of painting, printmaking and found imagery. Gabriela’s creations are often humorous and whimsical, with splashes of vibrant colour and random connections between images. She is inspired by many artists including Joseph Cornell, Henri Matisse, Peter Blake, Terry Gilliam and the anonymous collage makers of the 18th and 19th centuries.
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GINGER SEDLÁŘOVÁ
I consider myself both a collage artist and a storyteller. Sometimes my work is a short story, sometimes it’s a novel. But it’s always surreal, full of observations about the absurdity of daily life or conversations with the cities I’ve lived in, visited and loved.
My practice grew from my love of making photo collages in my former newspaper career as a graphic artist – only now I do this by hand, using my own photos combined with historical images and paper in a dreamlike form of narrative. The ability to layer these images with colours and textures, historical maps, newsprint and found items inspires me to create multi-layered landscapes of both fiction and history. I love to work with the bizarre, the comical, the outlandish – while working, I always keep the words of an artist who inspires me, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, in the back of my mind: “You can do anything. Nothing is forbidden.”
More here
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