The Birds Collage

Burry Buermans is a Belgian collage artist based in Portugal. His collages consists of very detailed hand cut and pasted images who are put together to form well recognisable shapes. He only uses original images he finds in old books and magazines. No copies or print outs are used. In this way the search for the images forms an important part of the work proces. It limits the artist in his choice, but on the other hand forces him to look deeper and be more creative. In this way the found materials determine, to a large extent, the direction of the work and is it up to the artist to manipulate the images to enhance or redetermine their meaning. Often the used images are in stark contrast with the final shape of the collage. The spectators are first attracted by the shape and afterwards invited to look at the details. Often the used images engage in dialogue with each other which can only be seen when you take the time to observe the work and its details. The analog way of working is very time-consuming, and does not allow making mistakes, but in that way the artist has much more contact with the materials he uses in a multi sensorial way. During almost all of his exhibitions the artist is working on the spot so people can see how the works are made. Hereby came the idea to work on bigger and interactive projects so the work communicates in two different ways from artist to public/participator and from public/participator to artist.