Hi friends! I took a break over the summer from being an over-achiever; hope you did too! lol. Now it’s back to student-soon-to-be-teacher-grind-mode and my schedule is intense but so enjoyable. In addition to taking required Art Education major courses, I wanted to challenge myself as an artist, and signed up for intermediate oil painting class for fun. The class focuses on how we create meaning through imagery, technique, medium, framing , and although it requires 5 projects, they are all very open ended and can explore any theme.
The first two projects deal with processes for creating a meaningful composition using 1) collage and 2) a single photograph. Also assigned is what the professor calls, a “visual research journal” where I explore contemporary artists that interest me. It’s a great way to stay current with what other artists are doing.
I figured this would be a good stepping stone to figure out what I wanted to do with my projects. In doing a little bit of research, I found Jessie Craig, a portrait photographer who has work in the permanent collection of the UK’s National Portrait Gallery and has shot the photos of Oprah and Leonardo DiCaprio. The tie-in here is that Craig also creates inventive photo-based collages.
I like her work because she plays with value, repetition, color, negative space, and humor. The first image I like the way she tiles the models, making me question the role of the model and how they are often seen as replaceable or replicas of each other, maybe alluding to that lack of identity with the cut out of the face. I also feel like she challenges that narrative, and maybe addressing how the models may see themselves: the grayscale palette and then the burst of bright green hair draws your eye to the foreground. The Elijah Wood collage is just so funny, I had to include it and the last collage is actually a weaving of the printout. In the third piece, I like how the artist breaks the photo’s fourth wall, simultaneously deconstructing the photo and commenting on photography’s ability to weave a reality that we readily believe as truth.
Another collage-inspired artist that I stumbled upon is a local Baltimorean: Jackie Milad! She actually has a show right now at the C. Grimaldis Gallery on Charles St., entitled, Chaos Comes and Goes, and run from 9/26 – 11/2. This exhibition showcases pieces from previous works that have been reborn through collage. Milad aims to question preciousness and practice experimentation, while also highlighting themes of history and culture. She breaks down symbols that references her experience in the world as an Egyptian-Honduran-American artist, playing with themes like time, movement, and resistance to permanence.
Artist Matthew Grimes, who is currently based in Virginia, also does mixed media collage. At first glance, I’ll be honest, I was not wowed by his collage paintings. But then I read his artist statement, and his concept really resonants with me in terms of how to use collage to investigate meaning:
“The act of paying attention serves as the genesis of my currently expanding line of deconstructed collage paintings. The streets, in particular of Santiago, Chile, are laden with posters screaming intentions via graphics, imagery, and words. Yet it isn’t the designed communication that pulls me in, but the allure of the endless decaying layers of juxtaposed color and texture producing in concert an almost silent chance of passive composition… My intention is to bring to light the electric beauty of which falls silent to most passersby, ciphering the positive qualities out of the banal of everyday to act catalyst towards increasing observation of this world we live in.” – Matthew Grimes
Secret Place 
Love Letter 
Soup du Jour
Finally, here is some work by Baltimore-born and raised Beth Hoeckel. As an artist, play is an important part of her process, working with images she’s often been saving for years. “I almost always start with no specific idea in mind. The work grows organically and intuitively and I enjoy building something out of nothing.” She often juxtaposes foreground and background objects and inquisitive figures, who are often standing on the edges of cliffs, or looking out to lakes or even into deep space. She has literally hundreds of collages on her website, all categorized into theme – here are just a few.
From even just this beginning research, I am definitely excited to have fun with these projects! All of these artists used the technique of collaging in different ways to convey different meanings. My next step for the collage work will be to gather more imagery that the helps convey my meaning, my “why” – and then cut and play! ❤
MONICA HEISER 