Deconstruct to Reconstruct: My Collages

She lives in her collage world, and she's happy there.

I’ve had a love affair with collage for as long as I can remember. Returning to my youth, I would roughly cut out all my favourite pop stars’ faces from the magazines in the early 2000s and create a montage to plaster on my high school planner. Fast forward to today, my collages are more sophisticated (no more popstars!). My approach to collage is remixing, deconstructing to reconstruct, and creating intriguing and thought-provoking compositions with found imagery. It’s layered, patched together, and complex—much like life.

Narrative and Self-Expression

Exhibition in Athens, Greece (2022)

Art permits me to express myself in ways that sometimes words cannot. To me, collage represents processed information and the tidbits gathered from everyday life—memories, media, and community…all meshed into one composition that feels utterly familiar and recognizable. When constructing my collages, I strive to capture an essence, fusing the human form with surrealism, and often weaving in ethereal landscapes or natural elements. The ragged edges, juxtapositions, and imperfections are always embraced. I try not to shy away from images that aren’t cut out to perfection, rather I incorporate them to give the collage a textured finish. I normally work with seamless fashion editorials, so the balance between the rough edges and polished imagery feels intentional. In collage, beauty happens when you obscure images from their original form and the boundary between figurative representation and imagination becomes blurred.

Unexpected Connections are Formed

Staring at a blank canvas, I start with one piece and gradually build from there. Adding…subtracting…repeat. I enlarge an eye, then I’ll add a face, and maybe I contrast the face with a black-and-white image. Constantly remixing shapes, colour, elements, and proportions, until we end up with a visually intriguing and well-balanced composition.

We are inundated with images daily but collage offers to challenge them—reshaping them in unexpected ways. The distortion that emerges and the freedom to move each piece around until you strike magic are what draw me to this medium. The process can be both frustrating and liberating, yet the discoveries made along the way make it undeniably worthwhile.

My journey as an Artist has been anything but linear. I’ll spare you by excluding my earlier work in this post, ha! Finding my voice and my distinct style—which I don’t believe I have accomplished quite yet—has been an uphill battle, with the constant mound of doubt hovering over me. And then there’s the constant feeling of never feeling good enough. There have been ample times when I have reworked a collage after some time had passed because I felt that it needed ‘fixing’ (pictured below, exhibit A, on the right). However, I’m learning to embrace my creations, polished or not. I believe there is beauty in sharing artwork that isn’t flawless, so this year, I’m mustering up the courage to share my creations with you.

I am such a novice in animation so please consider that, but I enjoy seeing my collages come to life. It breathes life into the whole composition, giving it fluidity and energy. Below is a new mixed-media collage animation that I just learned how to do! She’s untitled, but do tell me in the comments about what you think!

Thank you for all of the support on my earlier note which prompted me to write this post. I appreciate all of you!

Thank you for reading!

XX,
Dominique