Collage Art

Artists Describing Their Art:

Michael Ashcraft - I am a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute. My work reflects the symbolic metaphors in the world around me. I spend a lot of time finding the right physical objects or settings to build the statements I wish to express. I may spend months or even years with an idea before I ever touch a canvas or piece of paper. Once I begin I let the painting dictate its own style. Only the painting can tell me when it is finished. I will usually set them aside for a long time before I come back and decide if they are truly finished or need more work. I hope you enjoy them....

Sonja Tellison - More than simple faerie tales, myths can teach, heal, act as morality guides, or beacons of inspiration along a sometimes murky spiritual path. The myths of a culture are its soul. They are whats left behind when the political border lines have changed and the people themselves are gone. Myth helps us to understand our own nature as well as that of the world around us. Joseph Campbell, noted scholar and one of the foremost authorities on mythology states, Myth must be kept alive. The people who can do this are artists . . . . The function of the artist is the mythologization of the environment and the world. At a time when we, as a society, rely more on science and technology for answers to our various quandries, than a collective, traditional knowledge, refocusing on mythologization is more important then ever. Are you anxious Here, take a new pill Are kids more violent Must be the video games The adage Theres nothing new under the sun. is itself certainly not a new concept. If we delve deep enough, the answers are already existent, like diamonds in the dark. When we forget the stories of our ancestors, we forget our own past and...

Sallyann Mickel - SallyAnn Mickel has an artistic style which expresses her deep love of nature and animals and the joy she experiences while creating her artwork. After years of rendering nature subjects in an exact, realistic manner, Mickel has realized her own emotional response to the natural world. Her portraits and landscapes are done in an impressionistic style using a limited palette, thick, rich oil paint or pastels, and a simplified vision. Currently, Mickel is exploring the combined mediums of collage and pastel. A concern for the environment and wildlife are underlying theme's in Mickel's artwork; artwork that is continually evolving. SallyAnn received her basic art training from Towson State College in Baltimore, Maryland and various courses and workshops offered in the Maryland area. Her inspiration comes from nature and animals. Her animalscapes (as she calls her portraits) are done realistically and in an Impressionistic style with soft pastels on quality Mi-Tientes pastel paper. Her animal portraits have been juried in and have won awards in local and national art shows, including 'The Art Show At The Dog Show' in Wichita, KS and 'The Cat Show' in Rockville, MD. She has portraits in art collections from Baltimore, Maryland to ...

S Tofu - My artwork has two main focuses; mixed media collage and landscape painting. I have always used old maps in my collages and incorporated map inspired ideas into my art. In January of 2001, I experimented with a collage using only maps. The success of the experiment and the resulting piece changed the direction of my work. Much of the map work takes its inspiration from other traditional art forms using repetitive patterns, in particular quilts and other textiles. In 2009 the patterns used in my collage work started to take on a more painterly appearance. In 2011 I spent the entire year creating a large-scale piece called the 2011 Project. Essentially I created a map of the year by making a piece of art on each and every day of 2011. The work is made up of 365 individual, mixed media pieces, each 4"x4" (10x10 cm) in size. In many ways the 2011 Project was also my sketchbook for future work. I experimented with new materials and subject matter for many of the 365 pieces. Those ideas have been playing out since 2011. 2012 saw a solo show that was a travel-themed mixed media installation called Imagining ...

Caren Keyser - My expressionist paintings are done using an intuitive process. I begin with the paint and then allow the paint and my subconscious to lead me to the subject matter. Exciting interactions between colors evolve from brushwork, pouring, glazing, spraying and other techniques. I strive to show the essence of the subject rather than paint an overly realistic image. I never know what I will find next in my work. I hope it will be dramatic and emotional. Note that the paintings are not framed. ------------------------------------- I began painting professionally in 1977 after studying art at Florida Atlantic University. There I explored the many styles and techniques available to the acrylic painter. My first photo-realism style piece was created while attending FAU. I knew from that moment that realistic nature scenes would be my style of choice. This remained my theme and style until after 2005. As time has passed my work has changed and become more creative in its processes. Color is still the dominant feature in my work. As my focus has shifted toward expressionism I stored my realism pieces. The originals of many of them are still available for purchase and are included in my inventory here at ...

Steve Doan - A Precarious Balance For The Abstract Painter "Doan's abstract paintings a precarious balance of abrupt explosions of uncontainable gestural energy and soothing, stabilizing structure, which seem to transcend the painterly marks that constitute it. The best abstract painting manages the doubleness with deceptive ease: this simultaneous sense of equilibrium and disequilibrium--not just 'dynamic equilibrium', as Kandinsky called it, but a double vision in which the picture seems a sum of disequilibrated parts that do not add up to a whole and an organically equilibrated whole that is more than the sum of any of its details. Indeed, it rises above then like a mirage of higher unity. Doan's recent abstractions achieve this complex magic. Whether mimetic of abstract, it is the undercurrent of abstract, seemingly arbitrary vividness-willing intensity--that is Doan's basic subject matter." Andrew Dunning - Blue Sky Creative "Ne au Texas, il a grandi en Afrique et en Arizona. Son travail est tres impregne des lumieres et des couleurs vives de ces regions ensoleillees. Il vit depuis plusieurs annees e Bruxelles, apres avoir parcouru l'Europe. Ces differentes terres d'accueil ont influence des style de cr...

Reginald Williams - I believe the leaders of all societys past or present use the arts as a means to gauge the society. In other words whatever people want to see or hear it will be materialized. The leaders can also use art as a way to determine what is in the hearts and minds of the society. I strongly believe in art as a powerful means of communication and should be treated as well. Today their are so many who are not enlightened and ignorant of many things and must be made aware, or at least confronted. That is why art must serve a function besides just hanging on the wall collecting dust. In a more literal sense If it doesnt educate,inform,enlighten,sadden,anger,or at least stimulate the mind then it can't be art. Since the dawn of mankind when art was first drawn on cave walls its purpose was to inform and enlighten it was simply the first form of media news and will always continue to be a powerfull form of comunication. Some use art to decorate a wall. I want to use art to do what it was originally intended to do. If I can ...

Oleg Filin - <> my web site at

Chris Jehn - I am primarily a self taught artist and have always felt creative. I worked my way through college by teaching crafts at an arts and crafts store, everything from embroidery and macrame to tole painting and pottery. I have taken numerous workshops from other practicing artists. Being with a group of other artists creates a synergy that inspires me. I now primarily work with acrylics and collage. I especially love intense color, and have made a study of color composition. One of the main reasons I live in Colorado is because almost everywhere you look there is something wonderful, and IaEURtmm compelled to try to paint what I see and feel. ...

Susan Baquie - My art work varies in style as it is the result of experience and observation, as well as formal studies. From a type of surrealism to expressionism, sometimes more realistic and at others abstract in conception, many of my pictures reveal a psychological awareness, at times a depiction of trauma, and at others, the joys of colour, pattern, design and the flow of paint or ink across canvas or paper. Painting is like life itself, a constant mirroring of energy, a dynamic pouring of the soul onto two dimensions. It can be caring or selfish, it can be political, humanistic and even cruel. It is a way of life and as with poets and writers, often a happy work and often hard. It is wonderful to be able to show work on the Internet in this way. ...

Elizabeth Bogard - My art is about life. I Paint Life When Life Is Art, expressing what I see around me aEUR" people, places, moments in time - subjects I connect with on some level aEUR" intellectual, spiritual, or emotional. I find it better to let the subject come to me rather than deliberately seeking it. I believe that an artist must experiment in order to grow. Lately I am creating stylish collages using torn and cut papers from vintage and antique sheet music. As Pablo Picasso said, I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else. When this happens to me, the results are exciting. E. K. Bogard ...

Gunnel Watkins - My intention is to experience creative expression inside the context of the transpersonal. transaEURC/peraEURC/sonaEURC/al/transE^pEtmrsEtmnl/ Adjective: Of, denoting, or dealing with states or areas of consciousness beyond the limits of personal identity. Forms arise spontaneously and naturally from present circumstancesaEUR|..reflection, meditation, dreams and ritual open up dialogues with form bringing mind and heart back into balanceaEUR|aEUR|.central to my artistic expression, is the premise, that the art-making process is salutary in and of itself. I work with art and people with special needs; and, as an end-of-life Doula. aEURoeWhen the soul wants to experience something, she throws out an image in front of her and steps into it aEURoe Meister Eckhart ...

Alkistis Wechsler - Reality meets myths. Personal visual impressions of chosen English gardens ... lately also Mediterranean seaside, are coming together in imaginative collages and alchemic transformation. . Sensitive to the environment as well as to human interactions and expressions it all translates into visual myths . Not only travels between geographical points, but also a thirst for such trips in the mind through myths and readings of initiatic rituals of metamorphosis, infiltrated as well my art of painting. At the end, every archetype (for example Heliogabalus, Persephone and Artemis) and every movement reaches back to the source of rhythm and scales creating a personal mythology and so I understand my self and the world after each painting is done by a hypersensitive process and not a premeditated rational plan. The seasons or the elements and their rhythm are interwoven with my vision of human soul and the soul of the sea ...