Collage
Making collages is my way of trying to make sense of the world. I rifle around charity shops, markets, jumble sales and antique shops and use the things I find – postcards to unwanted books and magazines, fabric patterns, old maps and other ephemera – and repurpose them to make new images and stories.
One of my favourite writers, Rebecca Solnit says in her book The Faraway Nearby
We never tell the story whole because a life isn’t a story; it’s a whole Milky Way of events and we are forever picking out constellations from it to fit who and where we are.
I often think of this when I’m making collage. The process of cutting out, of arranging and rearranging different elements, serves as a means of being able to create, and recreate meaning – whatever is needed for this moment, this day.
I also use collage a lot when I’m working with other people to support their creativity – as it is such a democratic, accessible and rewarding ways of making images. Collage can reflect the complexity, messiness, and contingency of human experience. Through arranging, placing, and remixing of visual elements, we can speak in a different language about ourselves and our experiences. We can discover, or rediscover, what’s important to us, what we know, and who we are.
Altered Artforum collages
An ongoing series of collage works begun in 2018 made with found copies of Artforum magazine chanced upon in a charity shop in Hebden Bridge.
These works were featured in the Relaunch Issue One of online art, sound & writing journal SoAnyway
Altered Postcards
Collages made with found postcards, an ongoing series since 2015.
Occasionally available to buy here
