It became apparent to me that I am very reluctant to ruin the photos of my family: photos of people that are particularly significant to me. We see this in ‘Stolen Journey’ as I have kept the pictures whole, however this could be argued as the process of printing the pictures onto the book pages allowed them to be manipulated by the text. In other works of mine, such as ‘Wallpaper Nostalgia’ (Fig 7), ‘Lucky Man I & II’ (Fig 8 & 9), and ‘Unknown Best friends’ (Fig 10) it is obvious that I am unable to alter the images, keeping them as centrepieces. Additionally, I have also drawn frames round the images. This perhaps enhances the fact that the significance of these pictures to me is very big, unlike something you see in images I have found – images that have no importance to me.
With found images, as we have seen in my collage pieces, I do not hesitate to destroy or disfigure the photos: I am not attached to the people or the things in the pictures so I am not worried about altering them.
I have always easily defaulted back to collages; I find them therapeutic to create. For me these collages really helped me express my feelings and enabled me to focus on exploring my identity further through my artwork.
The composition in these collages is very important to me, using similar colours and sized images to evenly weight the piece. I tend to keep the shades very minimal, only really using a maximum of three; I consider this allows simple balance in the piece and, in doing so, does not detract from the meaning behind it. I also think the scale of these pieces is interesting; though not something I had originally intended. I feel that keeping them small (A4) somewhat symbolises how, although I want to share what I am thinking, I only allow a very small amount to be shared. Keeping the size small makes it close and personal, something you have to come close to see: not in your face and shouting at you for attention, like a larger scale piece would be.
As seen in my collage ‘What’s Bad For the Heart is Good for the Art’ (Fig 11), I have kept the piece very minimal, using layers. In this piece I have actually included one of my drawings instead of a photo. The layers underneath are pieces of an image of paint that I have ripped up and carefully placed. I find the phrase ‘What’s Bad For the Heart is Good for the Art’ to be very true: like artists Tracey Emin, Louise Bourgeois and many others, the most passionate work for me, I find, comes from true deep feelings; being hurt, angry or upset makes for very good art.
I did not like this collage as much as many others that I have created as its very plain and to the point. It leaves no room for imagination and I feel the images I have used in it do not show as much as in other work. Two of my preferred pieces are ‘Stop waiting for Flowers’ (Fig 12) and ‘Eyes’ (Fig 13). Both have more depth behind them and are, perhaps, more relatable for the viewer.
‘Stop Waiting for Flowers’ (quote: stop waiting for flowers to grow out of concrete) shows torn images of buildings in a city – ‘a concrete jungle’ – and a vine of flowers. I have placed the concrete image at the bottom of the collage and then sewn the quote above it as if to symbolise a vine of flowers, surrounding and tangling as they grow. The quote itself is pretty self-explanatory ‘stop waiting for flowers to grow out of concrete’ – stop waiting for something that’s never going to happen; stop wasting your time. I feel upon looking at this piece it may make the viewer reflect on their own life and whether they can relate to this feeling, again similar to many of artist Christian Boltanski’s works. I have used very minimal pale shades in this piece. I tend to be mostly attracted to pastel colours throughout my art, and especially in these collages I think it works best.
‘Eyes’ is possibly my favourite out of all the collages I have created using found images. Here I have used a close-up picture of a male’s face and a blurred image of trees and the sky in the background. As you can see, I have not hesitated to rip up the images: even the male’s face was not at all difficult for me to sabotage. In this case I even felt the urge to rip it and not keep his face whole; I just wanted to retain his features, not him as a person. I wanted to de-personalise him: to get rid of his personality and use his facial features as symbols. I chose to keep his eyes and mouth as I felt they are the most personal and drawing facial features on a person. This almost shows an opposite to Boltanski’s style of ridding a person of their facial features to make them no more than a symbol, but it shows parallels in the style of altering an image to your advantage; to make it say what you want it to, not necessarily what the original image portrayed.
The composition of this piece works well; the two black and white images located opposite each other and the coloured images arranged in between. I had also photocopied this piece and added in sewn text, however I felt this overcomplicated the piece and removed some of the mystery for the viewer.
