Good Time for a Collage

Untitled, 2012, approx. 10"x12", layered paper

It's Friday morning, and I thought it would be a great time to post a recent collage.  I'm itching to make a series of small works while I begin several large canvases.  Today, I am editing and altering images that I intend to print and include in these collages.  This will be the first time in several years that I have included actual pictures (found and scanned) into my work.  Excited and uncertain, the process of making these future pieces will be playful and telling.  If it is a success, I will post them.

Cut and Paste

Constructed Histories I - Striated, mixed media collage, 10"x14"

Constructed Histories II - Blush, mixed media collage, 11"x15"

Constructed Histories III - Compressed, mixed media collage, 10"x14"

Constructed Histories IV - Red Field, mixed media collage, 10"x15"

Initially, this series was created in response to my collaboration with photographer Ah-ram Park.  We worked together on a series of photographs titled “Re-purpose” that depicted bundles of discarded billboards.  These collages are reactions to those photos and are created through an additive layering process, similar to how signs are installed.  I constructed paper spaces through cutting, pasting and tearing that created new passages of compressed structures.  I am intrigued by the imagery that peaks out from each bundle and how these elements are suggestive of their unexposed interiors.  Within these searches, I remain interested with how the hierarchy of language is influenced by the layering and concealing of abstract imagery. 

Artboards Proposal

My proposed layout for the MO Bank Artboards.  With good fortune, this idea may happen in the Crossroads.

Yesterday, I submitted a proposal to the Missouri Bank Artboards project that works with AiA of Kansas City and Charlotte Street Foundation.  I proposed a series of recent collages that respond to weathered, deteriorating billboards.  In my proposal, I created a small mock-up of my idea and think it turned out pretty well.  The collages I submitted are small (approx. 10"x14" each) and start to include layers of cut rubber, felt, and paper.  I have titled this series of work "Constructed Histories" to reference the cycle that these boards go through during their transformation.  The layering of new signs over the old became a strong thought during my cutting and pasting process.

A Glimpse Inward

A Glimpse Inward, curated by Caleb Taylor

La Esquina, 1000 West 25th Street, Kansas City, MO

January 7 - February 19, 2011

featuring Rollin Beamish, Lori Hiris, John Douglas Powers, Caleb Taylor and Chris Turbuck

John Douglas Powers, Field of Reeds and Blue Sky Blue, 2008, kinetic sculpture and projection

This exhibition brings together my work and the work of four artists that I admire and who address related concerns. A Glimpse Inward presents contrasting perspectives on the exhibition title through autobiographical comic books, kinetic sculptures, videos, and paintings. My interest in the contrast or tension between internal and external natures and the idea of concealment is one both shared and rejected by this group. The works I have chosen maintain an underlying interest in what is revealed through looking and ask the audience to see into screens, beyond concealing forms, and into the psyche of each artist. Structures are revealed to include inner voices, microscopic imagery and social narratives.

If a glimpse is a momentary satisfaction of our visual senses, then Rollin Beamish and I have taken these sensations to an extreme, placing emphasis on the editing of cultural imagery and visual language. As my work investigates abstraction through concealment, Beamish's Presnt (Trace of Dissent) depicts instances where media and social tampering are occurring. The viewer is forced to unveil the meticulously painted layers to expose narratives that exist in a non-space of growth and decay. We both depict an accumulation of language that is simultaneously visceral and ordered.

The works of Chris Turbuck, Lori Hiris, and John Douglas Powers place interior structures on the outside to grasp solidarity in the past. They hold a greater interest in the revealing of information than I do, while sharing an anecdotal interest with Beamish. Hiris and Turbuck are their own narrators, telling personal stories that reveal a vulnerability and truth behind seemingly banal events. Turbuck shares dialogues from his graphic novel Fruitless about failed job interviews, relationships, and the struggles of building a career. His introspective drawings move between humorous and tragic as we sympathize with each experience. In Atlantis Unbound and Proteus, Hiris illustrates and captures an elaborate timeline of the genetic research of Francis Galton through petri dish-like lenses. Like Turbuck, her process of drawing extends the concept of "artwork as stage." Their use of sequential layouts crosses over into Powers' use of repetitive, kinetic elements. His sculptures are the actors, working in real-time to recall the past. Field of Reeds exudes calmness as its gears rotate and squeal out a soundtrack that resonates like a fond memory.

Curating an exhibition that explores similar and contrasting viewpoints has introduced me to new ways of evaluating my own practice and methodologies. My interest in bringing this group together was to extend a dialogue between individuals aggressively pursuing related ideas. This exhibition is a result of their perspectives that I believe stretches far beyond a glimpse.

Field of Reeds by John Douglas Powers greeted the crowd at the front door. See this beautiful sculpture do its thing here. In his lecture, Powers discussed how glad he was to show this work in the midwest because of its resemblance to waving fields of wheat.

Caleb Taylor, Bend and a Stretch III, 2010, oil and acrylic on canvas, 60" x 53"

Continuing clockwise around the space, you can get a sense of the overall installation including paintings by Rollin Beamish (below, Complications of Corporeality, 2008, oil on muslin, 20" x 20"), collages by Caleb Taylor, and a peek at the pages of Fruitless by Chris Turbuck.

John Douglas Powers, Sky Blue Sky, 2008, wood, steel, plastic, video component, 5" x 3.5" x 2". A Glimpse Inward included both the smallest and largest pieces Powers has made. Sky Blue Sky had a great conceptual place in the exhibition by asking viewers to peer into the tiny screen to watch the rolling clouds.

Chris Turbuck, 88 pages of Fruitless, 2008-2011, ink on board, 11" x 14" each (84" x 188" overall)

Chris Turbuck, Fruitless (detail, chewing fingernails), ink on board, 11" x 14"

Rollin Beamish, Present (Dissent of Time), triptych, oil on muslin and board, 120" x 40"

Rollin Beamish, Present (Trace of Dissent), right panel, oil on muslin, 40" x 40"

Rollin Beamish, Present (Trace of Dissent), detail of left panel

Caleb Taylor, Skin Grapht I, mixed media collage on paper, 22" x 30"

Caleb Taylor, Skin Grapht II, 2010, mixed media collage on paper, 22" x 30". This series of collages are recent and address an accumulation of language. I want the surfaces of these collages to hold a balance of rigidity and flexibility with each element relying on the next to physically and visually hold its structure.

Installation view of A Glimpse Inward, La Esquina, Kansas City, MO

Installation view of Caleb Taylor's collages and Lori Hiris' videos Atlantis Unbound and Proteus.

Lori Hiris, Proteus, 2009, video stills, dimensions varied. Lori's video played on a small screen with a soundtrack that had a nice balance to the sounds of Field of Reeds. Hiris' videos are constructed with a draw/erase process, collage, and the physical manipulation of objects (including gummy worms).

Installation view of Skin Grapht IV and III, mixed media collage, 22" x 30"

Caleb Taylor, Skin Grapht IV (Out the Window, 2010, mixed media collage, 22" x 30"

Caleb Taylor, Skin Grapht III, 2010, mixed media collage, 22" x 30"

Cut and Folded

Untitled, 2010, acrylic, collage and found paper on manila folder, 9"x11"

This recent collage is from a series of small works that strictly investigates abstraction from a Modernist standpoint. I have been using collage for the past five years as a way of exploring new territories and building on my existing vocabulary of color, form, and space. These works are a departure from my usual conceptual direction, and give me a break from my norm to remain playful in my studio. It feels great to make quick, intuitive decisions that involve folded paper, delicate stencils, and built-up surfaces.