Down the Rabbit Hole All Over Again

This collage is composed almost entirely of images from an Annie Liebovitz shoot for the December 2003 issue of American Vogue. Alice is played by the hauntingly childlike Natalia Vodianova and some of the world's top haute couture designers play the Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts (I especially love Marc Jacobs playing a dazed and confused Caterpillar atop a giant mushroom):

Down the Rabbit Hole II, 20" diameter, (2009)

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Using the round canvas was an allusion to rabbit hole that beckons Alice into Wonderland. The circular shape lent a centrifugal force to the composition, with the vignettes composed along the edges. Alice's blue dress unites her image throughout the vignettes, and enforces the narrative aspect of the composition. I hope that you find it whimsical and fun!

Darwin's Dinner Party

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Darwin's Dinner Party, 2009. (8"x8")

During the week I intern at Paul Kasmin Gallery in Chelsea, and they have introduced me a number of stellar artists, including my new favorite artist: Walton Ford. His paintings are so exquisitely beautiful, and demonstrate such skill and mastery, that they seem to come from a bygone century. I am absolutely obsessed with the large watercolors of parrots, lions, and monkeys which recall the look of an Audobon print. Luckily for me, Paul Kasmin represents Walton Ford, and has a pile of Walton Ford promotional day planners left over from his last show. I dismembered the day planner and combined three of Walton Ford's images into this collage.

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Oftentimes when I am people-watching I am amused by how ape-like humans truly are. At rush hour it really does look, and sound, like a bunch of monkeys are riding the subway. I was drawn to the Ford vignettes involving monkeys, especially where they are engaged in ostensibly "human" activities, because it was such an amusing play on that concept. The expressions on the monkey's faces are instantly legible, and eerily familiar.

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This wise ape with his glass of wine, peering around the edge of the canvas, is one of my favorite details of the piece.

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What should I call this?

One of the hardest parts of art-making, for me, is coming up with a good title. Sometimes, the theme or content makes it easy for me, e.g. Romeo & Juliet, but other times I have writer's block. With an abstract collage, like the one I just finished, I'm almost always at a loss. Therefore, I'm turning it over to you for suggestions. I just finished this new collage (its 12"x36" if the dimensions matter to you) and I need your creativity in coming up with a title!

"Panes" (2009) 12"x36".

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Works in Progress

WIP, or for the non-Orchesis readers out there, Works in Progress, is an opportunity for an artist to get feedback on incomplete work, and is an important part of any creative process. I'm currently working on two collages, one of which is further along than the other, and I'm ready for some input. I didn't get my whole studio set-up to take these pictures so they aren't as high quality as the pictures I usually post of finished work. But please take a look and tell me what you think:

This piece has a special relationship to the Romeo & Juliet collage, because both began from a Vogue magazine photo shoot by the (in)famous fashion photographer Annie Liebovitz. I've always loved the aesthetic of Vogue, and for a long time I've been haunted by images from an "Alice in Wonderland" inspired fashion spread from 2003, but I couldn't find the pictures anywhere. Now that I finally have the images, I'm thrilled to be working on a round canvas. My collages often have a centrifugal compositional force, which, combined with the round canvas in this collage, will play up the "down the rabbit hole" quality.

Unfortunately the quality of this image is sub-par, but as you can see this collage is nearly complete at this point. It is 12"x36", with images drawn mainly from Martha Stewart Living magazine's scenes of domestic bliss. The palette and mood of the piece are light, airy and uplifting, drawing a comparison to my Newport-inspired works.

Caution! Wet Paint!

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"Open to the Sky" August 2009. 8"x10" collage on canvas.

This weekend I am in my favorite summer resort town, Newport RI, to participate in a charity fundraiser. The Newport Art Museum has an auction each year named Wet Paint, where artists from all over the region come together for one weekend each summer to make art and auction it off for the benefit of the museum. The artists are of all ages, ranging from t0w-headed, 5 year old, finger-painters to some recognizable and venerable established artists. I'm very excited to have two collages included in this years offering: "Open to the Sky" and "Pottery & Peaches" (see last post). Tonight I got to go see them at the preview silent auction and put in the first bid on my pieces, and tomorrow they are going to be presented to the public. I can't wait to see how they sell, and I'll post to let you know!

UPDATE:

So the good news is, both of my collages were bought at the Wet Paint auction, the bad news is, the only bid on each was from my mom. So in the end we ended up just buying the work back, but at least it was for a good cause and a lot of fun. Next year I think I'm going more traditional, a nice oil painting of the ocean or something, because this was definitely not the right venue for collage. Oh well, you live and you learn.

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"Open to the Sky" side detail view

Right off the edge

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"Pottery & Peaches" (August 2009). 8"x10", collage on canvas.

Recently, I made the switch from using posterboard as the support for my collages to using stretched canvas. I had liked the posterboard (yes like from your seventh grade science project) because it was so lightweight that it made transportation easy, but unfortunately with all that moving around I learned the downside to posterboards portability was its fragility. With the ravages of time and travel all of my collages bent and buckled and broke. Canvas is much more durable, and it offered me a new, unconquered, territory for collage: the sides.

While collaging on posterboard, I would not extend the images onto the rough, raw, edges of the poster board, but with a stretched canvas the sides are finished, and thus a fresh pasture to frolic in. Instead of stopping at the edges my images have slopped right over the sides, overflowing down the flanks of the canvas- a coordinated frame:

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Side detail of "Pottery & Peaches" (August 2009).

All of the pieces that are currently at Wave Gallery in Newport, RI also feature the "right off the edge" look.

On another note I've been thinking about selling editions of my collages (as well as the originals). So if you are interested in making a purchase please e-mail me at Ashleye23@gmail.com , put the name of the piece that you are interested in in the subject line and I will send you all the pricing information.

Thanks for reading!

Riding the WAVE

One of my main goals for the summer was to make some "commercially" sized and priced collages and see if I can get them sold in my favorite summer resort town Newport, RI. With that in mind, I made three new collages (pictures below) which are currently for sale at The Wave Gallery in Newport (www.wavegallerygifts.com). I decided to use imagery from Martha Stewart Living magazine, because she personifies the bright, commercial, and cheerful mood I was trying to capture. These are all a lot smaller than I usually work so I should be able to produce more soon!

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"Newport Blooms" (2009), 8"x10" collage on canvas.

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"Spools" (2009), 8"x10" collage on canvas.

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"Late July" (2009), 8"x16" collage on canvas.

Romeo and Juliet

One of the pieces I've been working on this summer is a Romeo & Juliet themed large collage. The idea started from a photoshoot that I pulled out of Vogue a long time ago, its a shoot featuring ballerinas acting out the seminal moments of the Shakespearean drama while dressed in haute-off-the-runway couture. I'm pretty sure that renowned fashion photographer Annie Liebovitz shot it- the images are truly immaculate, the lighting, the colors, the rich textures. The images were very rich in color and romantic in detail, which lent a different mood, more mature and subdued than with other work. I looked for similar rich colors and textures in my additional source images to establish continuity. With the non-Vogue pictures I was drawn to some riffs on the traditional romantic motifs, like the images of Marilyn Monroe on the set of "Some Like It Hot", as well as some more traditional romantic imagery, like the Monarch butterfly wings and the gondola in Venice. During the making of this I indulged my Leonardo Dicaprio fascination by watching the equisite Baz Luhrman "Romeo and Juliet", and the excessive lushness of his visuals came through in my aesthetic. The tentative working title at this point is "Romeo & Juliet", but I'm open to something with a little more irony if anyone has suggestions.

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"Romeo & Juliet" (2009). 24"x36", collage on posterboard.

The image gives you pretty good detail expanded but I've added some additional detail shots so you can see some of the vignettes:

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Here are some of the romantic touches: monarch butterflies, lavender fields, peaches, and red hair.(Click to Enlarge)

Venetian gondola and the dead Juliet.

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Venetian balcony scene.(Click to Enlarge)(Click to Enlarge)

Butterflies at the ball.

Addiction To Elegance is Virtue Not Vice

This piece was a major component of my Senior Visual Arts Thesis Exhibition. While many of my collages are exercises in simple, frivolous, visual pleasure, this piece addresses serious issues. Entitled "Addiction to Elegance is Virtue Not Vice", the collage attempts to intitate a dialogue about popular culture, drug culture, and consumer capitalism. By conflating imagery used to sell luxury goods with depictions of illicit drugs, "Addiction to Elegance is Virtue Not Vice" exposes the underlying similarities in the economies of luxury. The same media that glamourizes profligate spending on jewels and furs is harnessed to the cause of promoting profligate drug use.

"Addiction to Elegance is Virtue Not Vice", 2009. 36"x48", collage on posterboard.

Installation shot from Senior Thesis Exhibition

"Addiction to Elegance is Virtue Not Vice" (center) is shown with (from left to right): "The Eye of the World", "Down the Rabbit Hole", "Gastronomy" (under "Addiction..."), "Saidin/Saidar", and "Synesthesia".

Some oldies

I've realized that to get my blog up to speed I need to upload some of my earlier collage work. Here I've put up four old pieces (late 2007-2008 era):

Flying AirIndia (2008). 24"x36", collage on posterboard, fronted with Styrene.

"Down The Rabbit Hole", 2008 24"x 36" collage on posterboard fronted with acrylic.

"The Eye of The World", 2007, 36"x48" collage on posterboard.

"Synesthesia" 2008, 24"x36" collage on posterboard.