Collage Art

HISTORY:

The term comes from the French papiers collés (glued paper). While some people trace collage back to the invention of paper (in China, in 200 BC) or to 10th-century Japan (when calligraphers applied glued paper to surfaces when writing poetry), Picasso and Braque are credited with bringing the art form into the modern age.

Dadaists and surrealists found collage right up their alley: What better way for Dadaists to express a rejection of logic and an embrace of chaos? For surrealists to explore the spaces between dream and reality, to allow the unconscious to express itself?

Part of the beauty of collage is its flexibility: It can employ many different media, including painting and drawing, paper, photomontage, wood, mosaic—and of course, today, digital media. Artists draw inspiration from many sources, too. Scroll down to enjoy a sampling of the work of contemporary collage artists.

Selman Hoşgör found inspiration in the recent film The Danish Girl. He generally uses and combines different media—such as photography, typography, and color. “Mostly, my collage compositions are created spontaneously, and I really like the way imperfection is part of my style,” he says.When he read the scenario and saw the trailer for The Danish Girl, he immediately saw the makings of a fine collage project. “Combining the movie images and fashion illustration together was a natural,” he says.

“Every character I create in a collage has its own personality,” says Enrique Núñez of Yes I do concept. One source of inspiration for Núñez is classic films and their archetypal couples—for example, Gilda, starring Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford.Mirta (first position), channeling Rita Hayworth’s Gilda, is the typical femme fatale;Edgar (second position) is the guy who gets in trouble because of her. “Harry [third position] is a herpetologist and entomologist who loves what he does,” Núñez says.

The female form has always inspired artists. “While I was researching footage for another job, I found several photographs of women by Alex Buts, and I was fascinated by their melancholic expression,” says Sebastian Onufszak. “As a result, I created a fragmented story about an unspoken goodbye, which ended in this digital collage triptych: Mademoiselle, Mon Amour, and Au Revoir.” For Onufszak, collage—as seen in these three pieces—is like a “creative playground,” where he tries out new styles, techniques, or media, combing different tools, such as Adobe Photoshop with Adobe Illustrator and Cinema 4D. “It’s an experimental creative journey with no specific destination,” he says.

The collages of editorial illustrator Lincoln Agnew are reminiscent of both Russian constructivism and the punk aesthetic of the 1970s and 1980s—and they are very much in demand by magazine art directors.

Ready to try your hand at collage? Carolina Niño helped us create a collage tutorial that shows how to use stock images in a composition that expresses your own “visual harmony.” See the tutorial.