Friday 11 January 2019

Collage: A Justification/Explanation/Liberation


Urgent! You Must Help! RTomens, 2014

Why collage? Can you validate the style?

A composer doesn't invent instruments. He knows how they sound and arranges those sounds to create his musical 'picture'. Likewise, when I cut out an image it's form/content are inherent but can be manipulated or arranged with others. Nobody criticises the role of the composer yet collage is often not taken as seriously as pure painting. 

Painting involves basic skills, not necessarily classical painterly skills. But let's not open the can of worms marked 'Skills' right now. To construct world from ready made images requires imagination and, to an extent, skill. To see a possible world constructed from components not made to sit with each other is magical. Collage is, like any other style, open to cliché. You will have seen content and styles repeated endlessly with only slight variation. Let's not open the can marked 'Originality' right now either. 

My lack of formal training used to worry me or, I should say, create feelings of insecurity...inferiority. It took many years but these days I'm free of that. Collage was, decades ago, a natural style in which to work since it involved none of the traditional skills. I still feel proud of some work from the late-70s. When I dig it out, it reminds me of the spirit of liberation I any others felt at a time when it felt possible to do anything; form a band, label, fanzine etc. We no longer needed permission or, more importantly, the blessing of traditional power brokers. 

That spirit lives in me today.

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