For my interim exhibition, the concept of appropriated images has merged with collage and evokes a sense of Pop Art in my work. The title “Ceci n’est pas un collage” nods to surrealist Magritte and the difference between representation and actuality, as I explore whether a work is more valuable or weighty if it is painted or if it is collaged.
Featuring in Ken Russell’s 1962 documentary ‘Monitor : Pop Goes the Easel,’ British Pop artist Sir Peter Blake, whose work has influenced my own practice, compares his collage “The Love Wall” with his painting “On the Balcony: “When I did [The Love Wall] people asked me why did you stick the things on, why didn’t you paint them? ... and when I do paint them, they say, why did you bother to paint them, why didn’t you just stick them on? .... just can’t win!”
Emerging from the exhibition is my proposal to combine future collage with painting and also three-dimensional assemblage. In the first instance it is my intention to make wall hanging combines, that have a lineage within Pop Art, both British and American, and further explore the concept of representation versus artefact. Contextual references include Joseph Kosuth, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, amongst others.
