This is a collage artwork. It depicts a still life image of a flower vessel which was made by gluing over a thousand cut-out pieces of old newspapers. It might be difficult to decipher due to the similarity of some of the colours. It is a whitish vessel with a green and blue plant, mounted on a blue surface with yellowish background (I hope you are able to see it). I wouldn’t be surprised or offended if someone hung it upside down because they don’t understand what it is.
It is a form of recycled art because I am repurposing old newspapers that could have otherwise been recycled into tissue paper, throw away to decompose or bunt at a waste site. The size is a 16 x 20 inches (intentionally made to fit into a readymade picture frame that can be easily purchased at the market or online). On an unrelated note; if you are interested in seeing my other type of art where I repurpose old papers, please check out my unconventional drawings on recycled sketchbooks.
The image for the collage artwork was an original idea and was made for the sole purpose of showing it at the ‘In The Garden’ Exhibition at Grey Fox Mercantile. Apparently, the gallery is dedicated to the felting craft but they host a monthly art exhibition with different themes where all medium of expressions are accepted. Of course I am very delighted to be (hopefully) participating.
It is covered with a layer of thin transparent plastic (for preservation and protection) hence the reflective nature of the work. I was in such a hurry to ship it that I forgot to make a few adjustment that would have improved it a little and honestly don’t have a good photograph of the artwork. As Pablo Picasso said, “Art is never finished, it is only abandoned”.
I wanted to document the process of making the collage-art but we had a power outage and I worked on it from late night till afternoon the following day. That is why some of the photographs of the work in progress, looks reddish (I was using candle light because the rechargeable lamp battery had run down). It was one of those spontaneous artworks I didn’t know I was making 3 hours before I started. I am glad I started and finished it; otherwise it would have just been one of the hundreds of ideas I have but keep procrastinating its implementation. So, with the glue still moist, I shipped it around 5pm (just before I closed from my days job) and they told me it would be transported and recorded for the following day.
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| The creating of a newspaper collage art of a flower vessel |
I am glad I have a new work I can include in my collage body of works, and I hope I make many paper collages this year. I intend on having a full online gallery page dedicated to collage creations.
Thanks for reading through, I think I would post more collage artwork before this month ends (and beyond) because I am feeling very inspired and motivated (the creative Muse is with me for now, I know I would make a work in the next 5 days regardless of how busy I get).
© Ife’ka Terry
Tugis Art Studio
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