Artist Statement 2026
I make three separate and possibly related kinds of work. What is important to understand in relation to what follows is that none of this was deliberate. I did not set out the schema offered in what follows here and go Well sure let’s now make the artworks. I just made artworks. Thousands of them, mainly in 2022 and 2023.
Picasso and Braque adopting or leveraging collage for their Cubist works was intentional as collage had a long history leading up to the 20th C. They were borrowing pre existing authenticity. This is a fact mostly overlooked but unfortunately it is true, collage as a practice goes back at least to the 11th C and you could ever say that mosaic is a kind of collage but with stone instead of paper. So if that is true then collage has its roots in antiquity. If that is true collage is more than 2000 years old. Mostly collage since then has been an amateur occupation or method.
I started collage in October 2022 in order to have something to do with the Eastern Suburbs Art Group, which I co founded in July of that year. Collage for me originally was to be a communal activity so with me as with other people over the centuries collage is a way of connecting, sharing ideas and feelings, and generating community.
Collage with roots in magic and religion. Later it took hold in different ways in different minds as a way to understand and communicate understanding of the natural world, in the 17th C. But originally the use of objects to make fetishes and other magical objects, and the pilgrim’s reliques. There were other devotional objects, pieces of the bodies of saints etcetera.
In the age of scientific categorisation the use of found objects to make display cabinets for general enjoyment. Later in the age of manufacturing the use of promotional cards, samples etc, items stemming from the burgeoning consumer industry of Europe.
