Inspiring Collage Artists and Designers

Oh, Google. The mighty search engine that can help you find anything you’d like to know. But if you don’t know what you don’t know, then finding the right search results can be frustrating, overwhelming, and downright discouraging just based on the sheer volume of results returned.

That’s what I felt when I was trying to research collage artists and designers on the web. The subject matter is new to me, so I could only limit myself with broad keyword searches. The results were overwhelming yet devoid of necessary context, a myriad of noises disguising themselves as the most popular collages in the marketing world of SEO. Good for them, bad for me.

The coursework provided some suggestions of such artists, but somehow I was unable to connect with their work, especially for the constraint of this course’s Collage exercises. So I asked several designer friends about their favorite collage artists, and that’s when one let me borrow two of her books.

The first is Gestalten’s “The Age of Collage – Contemporary Collage in Modern Art” book. There are five artists featured in this book whose works are very inspiring for me, and they are listed below.

The second book is Rex Ray’s “The Paper Collages” limited edition book. This book is notoriously difficult to find, but here’s the cover image of the book.

Thanks to both books, I got the necessary context about various styles of collages (cubist, futurist, dada, surrealist, pop art, among others) and relevant examples. Rex Ray’s book also is really inspiring, and I found myself drawn to many of his works. This is only possible thanks to my friend, and I’m so grateful for that!

At the end of the day, I am by no means a much more informed individual about collages, but at least I got to understand some of the fundamental why’s and how’s of creating collages as an art expression. From those two books, here are some works that resonate with me the most:

1. Nils Karsten – Roll ‘n’ Rock, 2011
I find this particular work to be a great starting point to start envisioning the Exercise 2.2 (Block Silhouettes). While my approach will be different, this is a great visual exercise to see how an assembly of silhouettes is done.

*I had a hard time finding this specific work on Nils Karsten’s website, but his other similar works are shown there.

2. Luis Dourado – Departure, 2013
This photo manipulation provides a really interesting visual. Clean, geometric, yet somewhat twisted, it’s something I’d like to try in the near future.

Source: Luis Dourado’s website

3. Leigh Wells – Pearl Diver, 2009
This 2D visual of a 3D composition is very attractive. It feels fluid, poetic, and effectively modern.

Source: Leigh Wells Studio website

4. Francisca Pageo – Untitled, 2012
I really like her minimalist approach; her fluid lines, serene use of colors, and use of white space are all great indicators of her skills. No wonder my friend has one of Pageo’s work hanging on her wall!

Source: Francisca Pageo’s website

5. Jose Romussi – Dancer Anna Pavlova, 2014
I love textiles, so his use of threads not unlike hand embroidery details are really inspiring! I’d find a way to do something like that for one of my future sewing projects.

Source: Jose Romussi’s website

Side note: I also want to do something like Ben Lewis Giles’ flower collage texture in one of my future sewing projects.

6. Rex Ray’s works
Rex Ray’s works are devoid of titles, but no matter. What I love most inspiring about his works is his approach on creating them. They are spontaneous, random, exploring through different “topics” not unlike moments of relaxed meditation. Rex Ray’s works are results of allowing oneself to just do and loosen up, instead of overthinking every decision.

His book has many more examples not available online, but here are some of his selected works for reference: