Inspiration: 5 Cool Collage Artists

I really want to start making more collages. I can start that after I stop complaining about all the shit I have to do. For the past few nights I have woken up every hour thinking about all the random things I decided to take on AND WHY DID I DO THAT? But soon this documentary will be over and my hard work will be immortalized at ESPN Films which is something i never thought i would say. I will have written an essay for a magazine which will be very cool. I will have product shots up for Cocoknits. All will be fine. Soon. SOOOON. Until then, I dream about being creative again. Which really does nothing--one just has to jump in and make things. But for now let me share some collage inspiration: 

Magdalena Franczuk and Ashkan Honarvar

Photographer Franczuk and collagist Honarvar's collaboration is called The Bad Schoolgirl. In these delicately disturbing works, natural elements have cut their way into Franczuk's soft portraits of young girls. The schoolgirls in the portraits are going about their daily routine, as the distractions of nature and curiosity worm their way into their consciousness. 

Rocío Montoya:

From her website: "The human body in synergy with nature, the female figure and the loss of identity are the conceptual basis of her work." Well friends, it's all here in my favorite piece of hers. These first two collages I have shown you, I am realizing now, fall in line with something I have been thinking about: the female body as a thing connected to nature and as something to be feared by men. It's probably my Renaissance painting obsession speaking, but women in art are often shown as anonymous figures to stand for all women and the sin that all women symbolize. Women are portrayed naked and surrounded by nature because they are as dangerous and unknowable as nature. Montoya's works comment on this unfair phenomenon. 

Ulla Jokisalo:

Jokisalo's work focuses on the human experience and play. She deals with aging and stages of life by showing them in playful ways. Her source material comes from old children's books and illustrations, which make for rather eerie settings and characters. She also often uses sewing materials like thread, scissors, and pins in her work to suggest the piecing together of a life.

Pablo Lopez Bueno:

I first saw this collage on Tumblr and looooved it. I later found out that this is part of Bueno's "Wired" series in which he takes photos of people and deconstructs them and arranges them around a line or two drawn onto his paper. I especially love the way he uses the tape to give the idea that he reconstructed people manually and placed them on a plane that he understands.  

Marcos Martinez Perez:

This is part of Perez's "Only Paper" series. Honestly, this one just shows what good old fashioned collage is about: putting things together that could never be in reality. I love the monochrome old photos on a sweeping green landscape over negative space. Very cool.