Collage and Modern Architecture & Design

Being a student of collage with an interest in modern architecture and interior design, I am fascinated with the effects created by extreme contrasts of elements. Most modern architecture and design relies on the juxtaposition of environment and shapes for success.

For example, the plain geometries of a new building in an historic neighborhood or natural environment or the juxtaposition of one antique element in a room of new designs are such effects. Collaged works of art are based on similar notions and also built upon the ideas generated by dramatic contrasts.

I have the privilege of receiving collages occasionally from artist friends, Robert Clepper and Robert Warner, and I try to respond in kind. It is a form of visual correspondence. However, mine are amateur efforts while theirs are professional. I think anyone can collage and the results will have the artistic currency that collage easily allows, but only a gifted eye for arrangement produces a work of art on the highest plain.

The power of the artist’s collage is brought home by an exhibit at the Pavel Zoubok Gallery on view until the August 14. Titled "Daughters of the Revolution: Women & Collage," it features the work of 32 artists.

Many of these works of art take an architectural approach and demonstrate the shared nature of collage and the design of the modern environment at present. They both serve to reveal and inform via the dramatic layering of forms and ideas.

From top: India Evans, Into the Selves, 2008; A collage from Robert Warner’s Sleeping with Scissors series, 2007; Robert Clepper’s, Palais de Versailles; Robert Clepper, Lone Star; Addie Herder, Bruges, 1972-74; Louise Erhard, So, It’s All Come to This, 2008; Sarah Austin, Braque, Picasso, 1978.