Matisse The Cut-Outs

Beatufully represented Henri Matisse exhibition "The Cut-Outs" takes place at Tate Modern in London until 7/09/14. Matisse Cut-Outs were figures cut out and into painted paper and then arranged as collage (but without molding) to the surface. The artist has created a new medium, which began as an experiment in modelling and became art works in their own right.
The exhibition shows the creating process on pictures and videos: Henri Matisse is on a wheelchair whereas his assistant holding a paper and the artist with large scissors gliding through the painted sheets. The rich colour of the shapes is guache paint. Tate's colour conservator reveals, as she could see the works very close, that a lot of the paper shapes are in some parts torn rather than cut. This makes it clear that the creating process was fast and passionate; Matisse was in a hurry to make art happen and, maybe, feared to stop (as worked even at nights) as stopping would mean dying.

There are a few paintings of the artist studio interior shown at the exhibition, which Matisse has painted during his illness. This is an evidence that Matisse has actually chosen the cut outs as his medium and not entirely had to work with it due to his limited mobility.

Matisse used pins to attach the cut-outs so he could always rotate, rearrange and move the pieces around to create a wanted shape. Today the shapes are molded into their final positions. But during the artist working process the art works seemed airy and alive moving on his studio walls. Matisse was not creating paintings. He was creating spaces.

In fact he was even disappointed about the printed cut-outs illustrations for the Jazz book: printing "removes their sensitivity". At the exhibition next to the printed illustrations there are original art works where we can see that the paper pieces were layered.
Today collage artists tag their works and search online for #cutandpaste #cutart #scissorsart #papersculpture #gluepaperscissors #cutnpaste #paperlove #collageart #papercut #cutout #papercutdesign #paperartist #paperart. Henri Matisse was focused on cutting rather than pasting, but this exhibition at Tate Modern is very important for collage, recycling and any mixed media artist as it is an acknowledgement of the new medium they all use today in different ways. The medium that is created in a 3D but presented as a 2D.

Wimbledon Open Studios

Collage and mixed media by Nick Sherratt
 

A month ago TOFCA searched for collagists in a very hot buildings of Wimbledon Art Studios as well as visited the Affordable Art Fair in Hampstead Heath. At both events I have noticed another trend in mixed media art (after butterflies, of course) - graphic over old documents and maps. Gavin Mitchell very neatly presented large photomontages but his website revealed Gavin is also an interesting collagist. Also at Wimbledon Open Studios I saw paintings that looked like collages, so I stopped to talk to the artist, Nick Sherratt, and found out something genious about his works. For his paintings Nick makes collages as sketches. So my eye for collage is keen indeed!

Fablon (!) collages by Paul G Emmerson just blew my mind.





A Sea of Collages at The Other Art Fair

Last month I have visited the PV of The Other Art Fair at Ambika P3 on Marylebone Rd, London. TOAF supports undiscovered artists to showcase ther work in London, has a very entertaining DJ and bar desks and is very well-run. Oh, and the Fair likes taxidermy (it's super trending, I know, but for me (a small scientist in political studies) it seems like the Overton window shift towards dehumanisation (you are welcome with your opinions in comments or in person). Anyway, for the last three years I was attending art fairs searching for collage art (I sensed it becoming trending too!) and The Other Art Fair kept me indoor for longest.
Dan Hillier showed his engravings collages made up in to prints which makes the final work look very tidy. Penny Stanway combines painting and collage in her cosmos-inspired works.

Penny Stanway

Claire Robinson engages collage technique in her illustrations and screenprints, very worth viewing. Dameon Priestly shows how great collage technique is for bringing up heavy topics; the stand also had some good examples of decollage technique. Andrea Allen uses paper in many ways in one piece; there's layering, forming and drawing with paper alone.

Collage by Andrea Allen

Soozy Lipsey had a very interesting (and popular) stand; her collages reminded me of one of my favourite collagists I follow on Instagram. And just on my way out already I have noticed these pinned black and pink waves and lines of Blandine Bardeau collages.
The Other Art Fair was a very inspiring event to attend.

TOFCA appearance online

Hello everyone,
Thanks for your interest in TOFCA - The Organisation For Collage Art in UK. We are a new organisation and at the moment trying several blogging platforms to chose which one will be the best to host us. Here I am playing around the http://tofca.blog.com/
Any suggestions are welcome. We soon will be looking to employ art students to run the blog!
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The possibilities of paper

Collage is only one of the trends within a massively trending PAPER. Everywhere where it’s “cool” to be will be something made of paper. Paper art installations and manipulated books are the favourites in the UK now.Su Blackwell

Artists, craftsmen and designers experiment with paper features for the last few years. Chinese artist Li Hongbo has amazed the world with his stretching paper sculptures at the same time there are 3D printers available already.

The paper popularity raised with the popularity of sustainable lifestyle and recycling (eco-friendly materials, recycled art) worldwide. Paper is affordable material especially when it is recycled. An artist from any country can use paper (recycle magazines, labels, cardboard) to make their art due to it’s availability. Therefore again paper proves itself as THE medium for the revolution subject. 

Sensuous collages from porn magazines

 

 

 

Jonathan Yeo is a British artist known for his portraits of famous people. For his collages he decided to use pornographic magazines. There's a lot written about the portraits and their political context, especially due to their good sales . We, however, found cubism theme more significant. To understand the artist's work and see how cut porn images form delicate nude shapes visit his beautiful website.

We searched for collages at the AAF

There are several organizations, societies, blogs and galleries specializing in collage in the United States. We found no such organisation in the UK and therefore decided to establish our Organisation for Collage Art (meanwhile the only one in England).  But collage is trending! Tate shows Richard Hamilton’s collages at the moment. At our art fairs public expresses alive interest in collage works. So we went to the PV of Affordable Art Fair (London) a few weeks ago searching for collages. Unfortunately, just like with the Works on Paper art fair in February, we found only a couple of stands showing couple of collage artists.  Ironically they were mainly from the States. Modernbook Gallery  all the way from San Francisco, California brought artist Raven Erebus. Raven uses old books’ images, neatly cutting out engravings, creating vintage look. I love the fact that I start this blog with this type of collage because I do see it as the most “traditional” technique.  Although it’s not our business how Raven prices his works we wanted to cry when saw such low prices on original works. Dirt-cheap Art Fair? And of course butterflies and birds in manipulated images and installations are very trending for the last couple of years. Don’t ask me why but AAF indicates best what galleries think sells best.