Homage - a tribute to APC'21

"Since the start of the pandemic, my life has turned into a sprawling mash-up of online learning, waiting for packages to arrive, and zoom meetings. Sifting through fragments of cut-up photographs and drawings scattered across my desk, I realize that collage is now a way of living. Each day the fragments of my study life, family life and life as an artist are sucked up into a vortex of uncertainty and deposited in a new arrangement.

To be more specific, collage is a way of living during troubled times. Collage is the medium of the makeshift moment, a form for the fractured present. Collage arises when there is both limited materials and excessive information. When materials are sparse, artists make do with whatever newspaper clippings or scraps of fabric are available. Meanwhile, we are flooded with information by the twenty-four hour news cycle. Faced with this heap of information, only an artist armed with a scissors can cut and paste it down to size, winnowing out what is most important in this time of crisis. Now is the time we need collage to make art from minimal means and make meaning from the excess of facts and opinions.

Since the start of the pandemic, my life has turned into a sprawling mash-up of online teaching, childcare, home repairs, waiting for packages to arrive, and zoom meetings. Sifting through fragments of cut-up photographs and drawings scattered across my studio desk, I realize that collage is now a way of living. Each day the fragments of my work life, family life and life as an artist are sucked up into a vortex of uncertainty and deposited in a new arrangement: job search canceled, child plays drums, credit card bills soar, grant comes through, neighborhood struggles – and a new collage is made. As an artist, I have been working in collage for more than twenty years, but only now has my daily life come to mirror my multi-layered compositions.

To be more specific, collage is a way of living during troubled times. Collage is the medium of the makeshift moment, a form for the fractured present. Collage arises when there is both limited materials and excessive information. When materials are sparse, artists make do with whatever newspaper clippings or scraps of fabric are available. Meanwhile, we are flooded with information by the twenty-four hour news cycle. Faced with this heap of information, only an artist armed with a scissors can cut and paste it down to size, winnowing out what is most important in this time of crisis. Now is the time we need collage to make art from minimal means and make meaning from the excess of facts and opinions.

As a medium, it is unfinished and unruly. A collage never reaches a clear and lasting resolution. Even after being pasted in place, there is a sense that one section could suddenly be lopped off and recycled into something new: there is always a fragment drifting towards the edge ready to depart for the next iteration. Collages are undisciplined: there are no set steps to make a collage. The only guiding principle is a good gestalt, a unified image, but even this powerful rule can be broken in an artwork, spewing imbalance and asymmetry into the world."