Playing with Collage
The term “collage” comes from the French word coller, or “to glue.”
Is it just me or does having a pair o’ scissors and a glue stick in front of you instantly transport you back to primary school? Being the nostalgia junkie that I am, I love that about it! Collage is underated in my opinion. I mean all you need is a pair of scissors, some glue, paper and old magazines, newspapers (that might otherwise be thrown away). So not only is it an easily accessible art form, it’s also a way of ‘upcycling’ old materials into something new. Win-win-win!
I started playing with collage in 2016 for a similar reason I re-discovered watercolour - as I way of helping me through a tough time. I think you can see it too in what I produced (especially the one below). They’re nothing special, but that really doesn’t matter and it’s not the point. I wasn’t trying to create a masterpiece. I was confused about where ‘home’ was, and I felt isolated and unsure about what I was going to do next (I’d recently left my job and moved country). I didn’t plan or even consider what I wanted to make before I started cutting and sticking, so the process ended up being really organic and ‘of the moment’.
If you’re interested in exploring your own psyche (I dare ya!), why not give it a go? Personally, I find it an interesting activity in self-reflection, as well as being an accessible way of getting the creative juices flowing if you’re feeling a bit flat.
I don’t have any aspirations to ditch watercolour anytime soon, so to me, I am quite literally playing with collage. But collage is an art form in its own right, and there’s some gorgeous work out there if you’d like to dig a little deeper into this often unappreciated medium.
Here’s a few artists whose work I’d recommend checking out.
