Everything is Collage

By Olivia J Stone

Contemporary collage artists are far from a monolith. Blending the eclectic realism of found source material—images from magazine spreads to scientific illustrations—with fantastical arrangement and a critical eye, these artists create worlds of symbolic mystique. Each of the following artists engages with the medium in a unique and intensely personalized way, tantalizing me with clues to this mystery: just why is collage so captivating?

San Francisco artist Bedelgeuse’s self-termed “anatomical collages” are a cornucopia of old scientific and botanical illustrations (some with digital alterations) that combine both the beautiful and the brutal. Skeletons and musculature bristle with flowers, birds, and snakes. “I suppose this work is my attempt at showing the interconnectivity of all things in the natural world… Death is the ever present companion. Growth always comes out of decay, an endless recycling of energy. Love and loss are a part of this experience that takes many of us to the extreme spectrum of feeling what it means to be alive. All kinds of flora and fauna find their way into the collages, representing the diversity of emotions.”

Bedelgeuse, Forgiven

“San Francisco artist Bedelgeuse’s self-termed “anatomical collages” are a cornucopia of old scientific and botanical illustrations (some with digital alterations) that combine both the beautiful and the brutal. Skeletons and musculature bristle with flowers, birds, and snakes. “I suppose this work is my attempt at showing the interconnectivity of all things in the natural world… Death is the ever present companion.”

—Olivia Stone

Bedelgeuse’s resume upends the notion of collage as an insular activity. The artist had a foray into the world of fashion when he was asked to collaborate on Rei Kawakubo’s spring/summer collection for Comme des Garcons Hommes Plus. “It was such an elevated experience,” Bedelgeuse explains, “on a whole other level of creative force… Honestly I couldn’t hope for anymore, but I am open to what may come next.”

On the East Coast, Boston-area artist Ian Babylon also thrives on an instinct for collaboration. Babylon is a founding member of sisterwerx, a queer art collective begun with longtime friend Patrick Serr “over a bottle of vinho verde for a schlock movie and crafts night” in 2014. As sisterwerx grew internationally, Serr and Babylon “led our local chapter in collage work of questionable levels of taste… Critereon Collection, gay porn mags, some old nat-geos and a heavy pour of Mod Podge—boom: you're now in sisterwerx, sorry.” In 2016, sisterwerx’s collage soft butch appeared on the cover of the Boston Pride Guide.

The Autoäpotheosis of Ian Babylon

“There is a relationship we sparkling meat circuits have,” Babylon says, “served by our perception organs, translated by experience and culture to the worlds around us: the anthropogenic, the terrestrial and celestial, where micro and macro both intersect in a demicosm… I want to see where wonder co-mingles with the pedestrian.”- Babylon

While that collective dissolved in 2018, new collaborations continue. Again with Serr, Babylon initiated Full Moon Fever, an online dance party envisioned as relief from boredom and anxiety in November 2020, that started humbly “with a screen share gif presentation.” These days the monthly party begins with a theme (past iterations include “GLAZED” and “STRAPPED”) and culminates in two hours of DJing over Zoom, overlaid with visuals—another kind of collaging. “The vibe is… a kind of sardonic, absurdist toasting of marshmallows as the world burns down all around.” 

Babylon continues to work on his own in paper-based collage, too. Just as a hint of anxiety undergirds the fun of Full Moon Fever, there are deeper resonances at play beneath the ruckus of Babylon’s marble gods, lotus flowers, and department-store jewelry. “There is a relationship we sparkling meat circuits have,” Babylon says, “served by our perception organs, translated by experience and culture to the worlds around us: the anthropogenic, the terrestrial and celestial, where micro and macro both intersect in a demicosm… I want to see where wonder co-mingles with the pedestrian.”

Soft Butch, Sisterwerx

The Torch That Lights The Way, Bedelgeuse

For some, collaboration is less possible, but the potential of collage still offers a vital outlet. Brazilian artist Luise Eru’s battle against isolation is a core motivator of his art. Eru grapples with living in a dense urban environment while being marginalized as a Black man. Artmaking is his escape, yet as the pandemic hit Brazil, quarantine forced him to try a new approach. 

Unable to access materials during that time, Eru embraced his computer. “As a young Black man who had no financial incentive, digital collage was an economical way I found to satisfy the creative desire I had.” All of his current collage works, which feature florals liberated among the landscapes and people symbolic of Eru’s urban environment, are fully digital. 

Adeus, Luise Eru

Software’s ability to adjust transparency leads to a unique form of layering in Eru’s work, as opposed to the juxtaposition that defines much of paper-based collage. Yet the emotional impact is no less strong. For Eru, who was “born in a big metropolis, in a peripheral neighborhood,” these flowers represent “dreams, desires and hopes that are beautiful, but very fragile in this reality.” 

In the gathered scraps that collide to make a collage, these artists have built their worlds. As Bedelgeuse puts it: “I somehow have the perception that everything is a collage: my created identity, personality traits, genetics, etc. Making collage is the only thing that ever made sense.”

Jogo do Bichu, Luise Eru