Inspiration: The New Collage
Through most of my formative education collage was considered something out of the past (i.e. Joseph Cornell's shadow boxes or Rauschenberg's assemblages) or a medium relegated to high school art classrooms or the realms of craft and personal expression. However, recently I find that collage is a great source of inspiration in my work, and more and more I've been thinking of my paintings and screen prints as a form of collage. The disjointed compositions generated from multiple sources reflect the sort of fragmentary postmodern experience I'm interested in examining through art. Moreover, with the exponential increase in internet usage and social media in last few years, we're cultivating a society exposed to endless overlapping and conflicting bits of information, making pastiche and collage seem like a natural expression of contemporary culture.
I'm amazed by all of the creative and beautiful collage art on the internet on a daily basis, so I wanted to share some of my personal favorite active collage artists (I follow them primarily on Instagram and Society6). Check out their inspiring works below!
California-based artist - Eugenia Loli
Philladelphia-based artist - Trash Riot
Cassia Beck from Brighton, England
Boston-based Molly Scannell
Sammy Slabbinck from Brugge, Belgium
Collage Artist Julien Ulvoas
Collage Artist Douglas Hale
Artist Beth Hoeckel from Baltimore
Do you have a favorite contemporary collage artist? Please share in the comments below!