New Collages

I have been making art inside the house, not in the studio. I made four collages.

I used to do a lot of collage. It was very freeing, as you could develop the composition just from random pictures cut from magazines or newspapers and come up with something you could never have planned.

I did the cutting and gluing on all of the four collages simultaneously. Then I braved the ice, and painted them in the studio with acrylic paints. Today I finished, at least as much as I dare to do. The more I add paint, the less you can see the collage images underneath.

All of the collages share the same background theme. They use one or more "Modern or Nonmodern" educational posters from the 1970's. Discards from a public school, they are black and white and a nice stiff surface to work with collage. I cut them up considerably, then added color pictures from other sources.

It is a mystery what they mean. However, there is a focus suggested by the titles. for instance, Blown has ancient Egyptian and a modern glassblower as well as a boy shooting a pistol.

There is a general theme for all the collages of contrasting more modern images of machines, a watch, a plane, a washing machine, a wood stove with images from the past, including ancient and so called primitive peoples.












Mainly, they are playful and meant to stimulate thoughts in the viewer. For me, my own collages can reveal hidden or subconscious feelings and thoughts of which I am unaware. I don't know what they're trying to tell me now. Perhaps after further analysis, all shall be revealed.