Looking at Sarah Hanson, Angela Paez and Martin O'Neil

Some further digging has upturned the work of Angela Paez (Scrapatorium.com) period ephemera, historic images and drawings built from just cut and paste. A good feel to these...

Following further research in to collage as a means of illustration to support starting points for the 'Library of Babel' brief I have been looking at the work Of Sarah Hanson - http://altpick.com/sarahhanson - who, on initial viewing works in a very similar style to Martin O'Neil who I have recently referred to. The differnces seem to be that Hanson seems more prepared to use current ephemera and photocopied images (rather that period/dated ephemera) and to enhance the collages with either print or digital based colour tint/overlay additions to 'condition' the aesthetic appearance of the final work.

In considering my use of collage, I am realising that I need to build a broader 'library' of resources. If I can explore the methods adopted by Sarah Hanson I could experiment with added digital detail to supplement the collection of older ephemera.

A Start to 'Analysing Practice'

dhcmrlchtdj
Axaxaxas
A new semester and a start to a new theme: 'The Library of Babel'. After reading the text through many times, annotating on each reading, I was aware that whether you read sections or the full text that - as for the 'Library' - ones perceptions and interpretations might be infinite. As the interpretation is a focus for next weeks seminar session I wont, at this time, go into my own perceptions. This said I have begun to bring together some printed ephemera and build some collages in response. For one I have taken the theme of the hexagonal motif and the title of one of the books in one of the hexagons in the care of the author. For another some of the statistics related in the text: Shelves of 35 books; books of 410 pages; pages of 40 lines; lines of 80 characters etc.

What I am finding in approaching this work with collage.... to avoid the obvious of developing text based responses on the computer - is that in wishing to illustrate a specific theme, my collection of ephemera (for the purpose of collage) is clearly limited. I now have to consider ways in which to extend this collection. Some time at car boots, scondhand shops, bric-a-brac stalls are coming my way.   

Collage as influence to print

Spaceboy
Hoppalong
As well as my on-going research into collage I have been developing ideas for screen prints using collage as a starting point. Subject matter has been imagery of childhood recollections following on from work that I carried out for 'Introduction to Graphic Arts' earlier in the year and continues with the theme of period influences; particularly of the 50's & 60's. For this I have been using Photoshop for bringing imagery together - 'digital collage' - with the intention of outputting layers as starting points that I will need for the printing process. The intention then is to work into these layer print-outs with other media prior to making up positives for stencil exposure. Access to print facilities during the summer recess precluded me from taking this work further. I will now consider whether I can take any of this work forward into the 'Analysing Practice' module, otherwise it might need to go on hold temporarily! The ideas are, at present, a little lifeless which is due to some extent to the 'hands off' digital process, but with additional mark making have potential I think?

Collage continuing

'Switch' - own work
'Perhaps' - own work

'I Can Hardly Wait' - own work
'Ticket' - own work
Sarah Hanson
Matthew Cooper
Since the holiday collages (Crete) I have continued to output some collage based on more recently found, print based ehphemera. As suggested in the previous blog influence has been from the likes of David Wallace, Martin O'Neil and Richard Meier. I am also now finding a growing range of artists using collage, in a multitude of ways, through on-going visual research. 

Recent finds have been the work of Matthew Cooper and Sarah Hanson.  Hanson's work  -http://www.debutart.com/artist/sarah-hanson/work - uses the found ephemera approach with imagery developed and enhanced with digital input. However, and this is the bit I appreciate, she manages to capture imagery and retain that visual 'period' aesthetic that I enjoy. Cooper's work -  http://www.debutart.com/artist/matthew-cooper-  also appears to use collage as a starting point with refinements and additions being digitally created. There are 'Constructivist' influences here in many of his works, (he did the cover for Franz Ferdinands first album based on a Rodchenko image).

Collage - Influences

David Wallace - Opportunities - Painting
David Wallace - Harmony
David Wallace - Fruit
Martin O'Neil - Collage Sketches
Martin O'Neil - True Crime
Martin O'Neil - War is peace
Through out the Summer I have continued to investigate ways of working in collage. I continue to be inspired by  a growing range of practitioners including: 

The collage work Richard Meier, the architect who builds collage from ephemera found on his business travels.  

The graphic paintings and collages of David Wallace - http://www.salaczar.com/-  who is based in Pittsburgh USA. His collages from the found ephemera of a bygone age have a wonderful sense of balance and he brings this feel to his painting which relates predominantly to graphic art of the 50's and 60's. 

A more recent find is the work of Martin O'Neil - http://www.cutitout.co.uk/, based in Brighton/Hastings. His work is of a similar ilk to that of Wallace in that he sources historic emhemera. The differences are that O'Neil supplements his collages with screenprinting and graphic mark making broadening his style beyond that of Wallace. Additionally, O'Neil's work is regularly in print as illustrations for newspaper magazine articles such as The Guardian and as book jacket designs, for example 'The Magus' by John Fowles; his client list is quite broad and multi national.  Accordingly there is a feeling that O'Neil's imagery is resourced to illustrate text whereas Wallace's work is personal development and more related to the arts in general. 

For me, when I consider the working practices of Wallace and O'Neil, both have generated a major body of works. It is now becoming clear that I will need to brush up on my searches to source visual ephemera if I am to be able to build on my development of collage as a means of developing graphic art. This is particularly so if one wishes to work in a similar vein to that of O'Neil, ie to illustrate texts.

Holiday Collage

Portokalada
Mythos
Maleme
No parking
Enoikiazeta
Gerani
Well, here we are, the summer has gone and I've entered no new posts for a few months. I could say it was due to a series of serious family illnesses - which did contribute - but equally I have not felt focussed enough to update my blog with  the work I have been doing over the summer.

Whilst away on holiday in Crete I managed to make a collage on most days from found ephemera. As most of the holiday included a good deal of eating/drinking, a good deal of the ephemera came from these sources. Building collage from current ephemera gives a completely different visual aesthetic to that of collage from found ephemera from the past. The fact that the 'historic ephemera' has already had its lifetime will have something to do with this, although I am still endeavouring to determine, or to be able to describe this phenomenon.

In addition to the collages I took a range of photographs, aiming to frame graphic elements of street 'art'; zooming in on areas of signs, doors, walls, anything that allowed me to 'viewfind' a balanced image. This approach feels similar to defining balance and content in the building  of collage. The key here though, is to aim to capture that image through the viewfinder rather than cropping and zooming later on when working on the computer. I have begun to print some of these outcomes at high resolution on a photographic quality printre - printing with 8 cartridges instead of the normal 4 - to achieve better contrast and colour balance.

I have included a small selection of images here as an example of these collages and photo's.