BEAUTY: Collage--Forestter Cobalt

Clever collage artist Forestter Cobalt uses vintage comic books for his materials, cutting them up and rearranging certain elements into abstract compositions. What I love is that he retains the iconic comic book panel format...

Top to bottom: After Hours; Black Friday/Free Pony; Catalog of Mishaps; The Colony; Folk Horror; Impractical jokes; Insensible; July; Pleasure; The Punchline; The Void; Whatsoever

https://www.instagram.com/foresttercobalt/

BEAUTY: Collage--Maryna Siliakova

Regular readers know I have a love of collage art...there is something about it that is so earnest and sincere...it says "the urge to create finds its way even if it means taking trash and ripped up images to make something of expression and beauty." It reminds me of a plant that springs up in the cracks of a cement walkway, imbued with some absolutely irrepressible power of being, a sense of tenacity and love. A collage artist says "I will take the scraps and pieces and throwaways of this world that might not mean much on their own and make...something."

Ukrainian artist Maryna Siliakova does just that...she freely uses textures and various ephemera along with images of people, places, and animals to conjure up engaging and unique narratives. Take a look...

https://www.instagram.com/siliakova_m/

BEAUTY: Collage--better not collage

Regular readers may know that I have become a big fan of collage art. I recently came across an artist calling himself better not collage who creates some intriguing pieces using retro and vintage ephemera. I really like how he gets scratched and ripped textures into his work.

Top to bottom: ATOL protected; being terrible; contempt, sure; ephedrine mooncake; possibilités insoupçonnées; security fog; the tightening; voice injury; was better; you have your chasms, i have mine

https://www.instagram.com/betternotcollage

BEAUTY: Collage--Waldemar Strempler

Loving these recent collage creations from German artist Waldemar Strempler. The use of antique paper, vintage books, and bits of worn ephemera adds a fantastic texture.

https://stremplerart.tumblr.com/

To The Point

Text-based collage art by JEF

Even More Collage...2024

Regular readers may recall that during the pandemic, I spent some of my downtime creating a lot of new art work including a series of collages previously seen here, here, here, and here. I was recently inspired to revisit this technique but this time with a few different goals. I wanted to work with texture, color, and shape alone, and not try to create anything representational like my prior works. I wanted to leave white space around each composition. I wanted to assemble each composition very, very quickly, using instinct, without overthinking or fussing too much with placement--since I had all the pieces pre-cut, I spent about an average of a minute or so on each one, just grabbing what seemed right. Even the titles came quickly, in just a few seconds--I chose simple, one-word titles and not the narrative titles I used in previous collage pieces. Goals met! I found it a fun way to kickstart creativity.

Top to bottom: Union; Ticket; Farm; Mycelium; Kingdom; Tectonic