Icarus | Smoking Brush

Plunge: collage and origami on panel

PAPER COLLAGE :

I Initially adopted collage to sidestep a period of artists block; using high quality, full colour, glossy magazine print as source material. Used primarily as a mosaic technique, the paper selected was chosen only for its colour and tone. The paper-punch collages represent extreme examples. This tight control over the medium relaxed once aspects of the actual printed imagery were absorbed into the compositions. Increasingly, the success of a work hinges on one fragment of torn paper, which provides that special intersection of textural or colour juxtaposition, not evident when originally embedded in the printed page. It cannot be manufactured; it is discovered, and usually only by accident. Its incorporation represents the point at which the composition assumes a life of its own and deviates positively from the original plan. Surfaces are constantly adjusted through a series of overlayerings, and areas of particular detail are more painstakingly constructed with smaller paper fragments. A unique characteristic of this form of collage is the variation in focus which one is able to achieve by combining the printed image edges with the physical tears of the paper fragment itself, producing ambiguities of form and space.