We’re delighted to present an awesome selection of collage projects from the talented members of our POP community. From re-purposing misprints and off-cuts, to animations, and digital layering, our members have brought unique and innovative approaches to the method of collaging.
Jennifer Zee: Lepidopteran Lily Pond
Three of Jennifer Zee’s large block prints with minor imperfections were repurposed by slicing them up and weaving the strips into a new composition. This intricate, up-cycled piece incorporates a print featuring a koi lily pond, and two prints patterned with moths. The resulting paper weave creates layers of visual intrigue as elements from the three original prints emerge and recede.
(de)conceptualise: Critical Strecthes
Critical Stretches, a new collage project by (de)conceptualise, plays with the idea of stretching and bending current reality and narratives, exposing their flaws and explore alternative meanings. By appropriating found images in commercial mainstream media – particularly magazine ads – the process of creating the collage is just as important, and closely tied with the final output. Inspired by multiple other art forms that attempt to dissent and question, Critical Stretches uses cut and paste images and a scanner to distort and transform dominant narratives into critical discourse that question that same dominant structures.
JoMo: Love Songs
JoMo is a multidisciplinary artist working in Illustration, Collage, murals, and Video. She layers digital, photographic, and hand-drawn images to create vibrant pulsating portraits and hybrid dream worlds. Much of JoMo’s work centres around music, as exemplified in her recent collage series, Love Songs. The collection focuses on prominent musicians form the Arab World including Egyptian singer Aum Kalthoum, Algerian composer Ahmed Malik, and Algerian-Lebanese singer Warda. Each piece incorporates visual references form each of the the musicians’ homeland and musical styles.
Rosie Emerson: Audrey
Audrey is a pocket sized, stylish, and punchy little edition by Rosie Emerson, featuring the ubiquitous face of Audrey Hepburn; actress, humanitarian, and style icon. After clearing out her grandmothers studio Rosie has worked with what she found. Her half finished backgrounds utilise music sheets, letters, sketches, notes, and piles of collage source material. Rosie explains; “I have had fun with these, playing like a magpie with hers and mine sense of colour, composition, and material. I’ve tried to be brave, they are smaller than I usually work and this has been liberating. I’ve used new materials, paint but also inks and spray paint, and combining the collage with screen print has been a new direction for me too.” The edition of 50 will be available exclusively from the Art Car Boot Fair, online edition 6-7th November 2021.
Ashley Jouhar: Icons
Icons is an ongoing series of collages by Ashley Jouhar, illustrating key moments, successes, and personality traits in the lives of strong, independent, successful women. Beautiful portraits are juxtaposed with found graphics, illustrations, and typography, that are cut out, re-photographed and then manipulated to show a patchwork of the icon’s life and achievements. “I like to unify everything by making all the elements black and white,” says the artist. There are more prints in the pipeline; Ashley is currently conducting some research and adding found material to the collections he already has, which will then act as the raw source for these upcoming prints. All of the pieces are inkjet archival prints on matt finish, acid free 300 gsm paper, and are on show and available through The Wey Gallery.
Leigh Bagley: Recycled Artwork
Leigh Bagley has been working on a series of recycled artworks; original digital work once printed is cut using a laser cutter. Occasionally, during the digital printing process the printer can error mid way through a print rendering the output unusable. Rather than waste the ink and paper, Leigh saves it to make into unique collages. Although similar in style no two hybrid collages are the same. Each piece if digitally printed using high quality acrylic inks onto archival 330gsm Somerset Velvet paper.
Theadora Ballantyne-Way: Surrealist Works
Theadora Ballantyne-Way creates surrealist works inspired by the rich history of the English pastoral landscape. She begins by carefully montaging original photographs in PhotoShop to create a hard-to-disprove realism, and then transforms the output using the traditional printmaking technique of polymer photogravure, which adds antiquated textures and marks. The resulting monochrome prints hold the beauty and allure of traditional printmaking whilst engaging with the techniques and issues raised by digital image manipulation. The combination of the digital and traditional, processed with the printing, real and fake, probes at our sense of perception and challenges the aesthetic in contemporary image production.
Tribambuka: Migration Museum
The Migration Museum recently commissioned Tribambuka, aka Anastasia Beltyukova, to create an animation for their upcoming exhibition Heart of The Nation, celebrating the role of migrants in the NHS. “The material was very interesting – tons of old photos, footage, and documents, but the budget and time was too limited to do something complicated or to hire help. I had to think of some quick, simple and effective solutions to convey the message,” comments the artist. Thus, Anastasia decided to use collage within the piece; cutting up textures, adding photos of the doctors and nurses, and building boats and suitcases moving slowly through the screen, while the poet Michael Rosen narrated his poem. The finished piece has very fresh lo-fi style with a retro touch.
Mariana Ou: Original Linocut Print Collage
This collage was made exclusively out of tests and misprints of Mariana Ou’s own linocuts. After months producing linocut prints, Mariana ended up with a pile of test prints that were taking up space. Her printmaker friend Moatzart inspired her to try collage. Predominantly producing prints with lady faces, by chance she found two that matched incredibly well. From there, Mariana complemented the new face with bits and bobs from other prints. Even though almost all of the prints were made with black ink, the colourful result comes from the different types of paper that she likes to experiment with.
Cally Conway: Beltane
Inspired by a new hashtag on Instagram for printmakers to re-use old prints, Cally Conway began using a scalpel to cut up linoprints and create new compositions. This collage was created in Spring time to celebrate her favourite time of the year and the festival of Beltane (May Day). It features a crane bird, a celestial sunflower, and dog roses.
Kate Castelli: C19Q Series
The restrictions of the pandemic forced printmaker Kate Castelli to pivot her teaching and studio practice. The isolation and uncertainty of this new normal was shaped by long rambling walks in her city neighbourhood, Zoom, and spending time in the studio making collages. The resulting collage series explores wanderlust, urban landscapes, and shades of grey interrupted by bursts of colour. Each monoprinted piece features vintage ephemera printed in red, magenta, yellow.
Emily May: Screen Print Collages
Emily May has been creating collages for many years, and has discovered that incorporating collage with screen printing is an exciting way to build a layered narrative. “I enjoy the contrast between the chaos of found collage materials and the precision of the screen printed element,” states Emily. Like any life-long collage artist, she has endless stacks of images and print media that she has been saving for years; “I’ll hold onto them forever until I find a use for them- and I always do”.
DeAnne Frost: Recycled Screen Prints
At the start of the year, DeAnne Frost had started to build up a large quantity of test prints, experiments, and off cuts from her screen printing practice. Not wanting to waste them, and enjoying the process of cutting and arranging them, she started to create a series of screen print collages. She comments; “I like the way I can create new patterns and join different prints together to create something new, bold and graphic. Being able to experiment and play this way has been very freeing and allows you to see what works and what doesn’t quickly.”
Ivy Mei: Mono Print Collages
Ivy Mei is a London based printmaker and artist whose practice is currently focused on screen printing, painting, and collage. She uses methods including stencil and mono screen printing, and collects printed papers to make college pieces. Her works incorporate earthy tones with pops of bright colour, resulting in beautiful textures with a naturalistic feel.
Check out more incredible projects by our membership community at www.members.peopleofprint.com. Want to join our leading community that celebrates printmaking both creatively and industriously? Apply here.
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