Distant Birds Collage

My latest collages use cut and tear to paint ‘Landscapes from the Imagination’. This technique creates a hybrid art form that builds images by remixing, overlaying and re-contextualising fragments of daily life that appear in print media. Nothing is what it seems. I use 1960’s women’s magazines as my source material as these are from the era that saw colour first introduced in periodicals and magazines. The paper is uncoated, and the print quality poor by today’s standards, making it easy to tear and creating soft deckled edges. It also takes in ink and paint so the images can be worked over and highlighted with drawn marks. The matt finish gives the finished work a softer quality than if I used current glossy magazines. Some of the printed material used has relevance to the image I am working on - others don’t. Fast food ads become landscape; fashion shoots suggest ploughed fields or flora; and scouring pads become gravel paths while an egg yolk can light up a sky, the list is endless. The collages come together with teasing little details; my mind can’t help but wander, and I go where it takes me while painting with paper. Some of the pieces are deliberate, but in most cases I am trusting the creative process to help build a final image that talk to the viewer. My collages are a form of recycling: trees become paper that becomes magazines whose printed images include nature and consumer products such as food, fashion and home wares. I cut, tear and reassemble these images to create landscapes depicting the trees that started the whole process.