ARTIST STATEMENT
My practice is primarily focused on collage and mixed-media work. Often steeped in irony it ranges from skewed visual puns to tableaux depicting deeper social and political themes.
The work is all analog 'cut and paste' in technique. This is a conscious decision to make images with my hands, resisting the use of digital tools. When I cut and tear paper images from my vintage collection and glue them into new pieces it is as satisfying to me as painting is. I could google the image I’m seeking and photoshop something together adjusting scale, hues and perspective to make it work but that’s not my thing.
To take images from chance finds at different times and locations and combine them into a final work is what makes them unique to me. No AI software could replicate what I do because for the most part the images I use don’t exist on the internet. My process is equal parts collecting and image making.
I am constantly collecting new materials; in fact I think a lot of collage artists are potential hoarders. Much of my source materials come from my time in the US, predominantly magazines, books and ephemera from the mid-century post WWII boom era through to the 1980’s. These advertising and media images depict a world of unfettered consumption and muted social awareness, preaching the virtues of capitalism, environmental destruction, empire building, the patriarchy, class division and white supremacy. By recontextualizing these idealized, staged and kitsch portrayals of life into new compositions I expose them as the consumer propaganda they were. In pulling this silverfish chewed printed matter out of my archives to view afresh, my work depicts the consequences of late capitalism while probing our present day dilemmas with few a few gags thrown in for good measure.
CONTACT
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:
Brooklyn Collage Collective, Episode 1
Brooklyn Fire Proof, Brooklyn – 03.2014
Brooklyn Collage Collective. Episode 2
Bushwick Open Studios, Brooklyn – 05.2014
Brooklyn Collage Collective, Episode 3
Armature Art Space, Brooklyn – 08.2014
Lorem Ipsum
Schema Projects, Brooklyn – 09.2014
Brooklyn Collage Collective - Inaugural Winter Show
The Living Gallery, Brooklyn – 10.2014
The Winter Salon - Kids of DaDa
Proparty Gallery, London – 12.2014
Brooklyn Vs. Sydney
M2 Gallery, Sydney – 01.2015
Spring Break Art Fair - Ego State
New York, NY – 03.2015
Brooklyn Collage Collective
Dateline Gallery, Denver, CO – 05.2015
Bushwick Open Studios
Gallery Lappin, Brooklyn, NY – 06..2015
Brooklyn Vs. London
Something in the Attic, London, U.K. – 06.2015
Published by the Artist
International Print Center New York, NY – 09.2015
Vitamin C
Rabbit Hole Gallery, Brooklyn, NY – 07.2016
Cut and Taste
China Town Soup Gallery, New York, NY – 07.2016
Direct Response
Ground Floor Gallery, Brooklyn, NY – 01.2017
Brooklyn Vs. Sydney 2.
China Town Soup Gallery, New York, NY – 07.2016
Brooklyn Collage Collective 2.0
333 Scholes Street, Brooklyn, NY – 04.2018
Cut Town - with Steve Tierney
Swamp Gallery, Sydney, Aus – 05.2018
Melbourne Collage Assembly Launch
Mister Morris Studios, Melbourne, Aus – 05.2019
Melbourne Collage Assembly - Winter Weekends
Coffin Sally, Port Fairy, Aus – 06.2019
More is More
Boom Gallery, Geelong – 10.2019
Xmas Cuts with Aylsa McHugh
Mister Morris Studios, Melbourne, Aus – 12.2019
Melbourne Collage Now
Off the Kerb Gallery – 03.2020
Rituals - Melbourne Collage Assembly group show
The Old Bar Upstairs Gallery, Melbourne, Australia – 03.2021
Amaro / Dolce
Umberto’s Expresso Bar, Melbourne, Australia – 07-11.2021
States of Disruption Collage Workshop
Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne Australia – 08.22
Ragazza Copertina
Umberto’s Expresso Bar, Melbourne, Australia – 06.2023
Welcome Home group show
Honey Bones Gallery, Melbourne, Australia – 08.23
Habitat Loss
Eugene’s Window, Melbourne, Australia – 12.2023
PHOTO 24 – Cut + Paste - Collage workshop with Eden Menta
Arts Projects Gallery, Melbourne Australia – 03.2024
Melbourne Collage Assembley - ReASSEMBLED
Kyneton Ridge Art Space, Kyneton, Australia – 04 2024
Cut and Composed - Group Show
West End Art Space, Melbourne, Australia – 05.2024