When i first started collaging (2003? 2002?) i bought this 40 x 60cm book of sports cars to alter.
At some point I began collaging some of the pages, and forgot. I took it from the attic recently, and continued adding to the collages this weekend. What joy – to have something half done.
Coincidentally i had been raiding my cupboards for book covers for Avril, and came across a guide to the Uffizi, bought when I was in Tuscany/Firenze in maybe 2006? I decided it was ripe for re-doing – the images were small, and all of them are available in some form in the internet’s worlds (chances are the images online for the Uffizi are in better nick than the ones in the book).
As it turned out there was a half-completed set of collages on top of a red car which had other images, similar to the Uffizi ones, in it (i know because after i’d trimmed all the images from the book and lined them up i spied some Botticelli duplicates).
So i did a big red dominated set of images, and faced the page with an old set of greenish bookshelf wrapping paper.
There was an other page already mostly done which was atlas pages joined together to look like islands. I added a rusty brown, some letters, some rivers.
Finally (and it’s not over yet, just for now) I turned the religious iconography into a kind of religious monopoly board (because you know, i like monopoly, or at least Kimonopoly).
The book is most of the size of my desk, and it’s easier to store than a painting, but really these are giant collage paintings. The right pieces just keep falling into my hands. One day I will be at a point where I have used up all of my ephemera, magazine clippings and such. but not yet.
More work on this here.
