Quadrat Serie, Fall 2024
Edges matter a lot when I build collages. I’ve written about them here and a couple of times in my newsletter. To me, looking at collage work (and most visual art), when I see well-considered edges, when margins are taken into account, I see an artist being thoughtful. Collage is an art form that lends itself easily to chaos and while I love chaos, I also want to see that it’s controlled. I guess for me (I’m trying to be careful here and not make up “art rules” for anyone else), edges and margins are like Van Halen’s famous brown M&Ms.
I built these collages to be a series of six, but looking at them now they feel like three series of 2 images. You’re of course welcome to disagree. Drop me a line and let me know what you think.
NOTE: none of these are currently in the store, but are likely available for purchase. Just get in touch.
Scroll to the bottom for a list of ten things about these collages.
Ten things about six collages.
Two contain pieces of old collages that I’ve recycled.
On average they have 2,8 elements each. As I’ve written before, my ideal collage has either 2 or 3 elements only.
Alfred Erhardt’s Niederdeutsche Madonnen is used 4 times.
I wish there were some smaller color elements in some of these. The blue and reddish/pinky colors really stand out - which is both good and bad.
The one black element that juts out of the bottom of one collage and touches the black matte is really interesting. I’m not sure if it’s interesting because it’s the only time it happens, or if there’s more to it. I will investigate in further collages.
In the same collage, I like how posed the photograph feels. It looks like a film still from some old movie where people fall in love while mountaineering. He’s either looking at a map or reading her some poetry.
I built these by cutting each piece to size and glueing them on the backing paper. Next time I would build the collage larger and cut it down to size in one step, then gluing the finished collage on another piece of paper. This would give me cleaner, more consistent edges.
Using pieces of old collages such a great cheat. But not really a cheat in that I did make the first collage as well, just a long time ago.
Next step is a ten list about each of these collages.