Protected: Gallery Talk
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Fashionista Collage
FUNKY PORTRAITS I teach the Art of Collage to adults and teens at the Pelham Art Center in Pelham, NY. I design art projects for all the classes and workshops. Many students want to learn figure collage so I develop projects with that theme. Students make collage with papers, explore color, design, add drawing,…
Group exhibition. 12/4/14-2/22/15. Bean Runner Cafe, 201 So Division St., Peekskill, NY
Silvermine Guild: Fundraiser Exhibition with original, affordable small works – 4″x6″ and 10″x10″. Preview: 2/22/15 -4/28/15. Gala fundraiser Collector’s Party: Sat., 4/28/15, 5-7 pm. Tickets: Silvermine Arts Center, 1037 Silvermine Rd, New Canaan, CT 06840. Open to the public Sun., 3/29/15, 1-5 pm.
Attend private and small group workshops designed just for you.
Learn collage, and advance your technique. Explore and expand your creativity at Media Loft in my studio, or at a location you select.
Also, ask about small critique seminars to define and refine work in progress.
Contact nancy@nikkal.com for available dates and rates.
In the image above, I’m standing in front of my 4 collages at the Silvermine Arts Center (1037 Silvermine Rd., New Canaan. CT). I was one of 6 artists who spoke at a gallery program on August 26, 2014. I assumed the sophisticated audience knew my works were collage, and didn’t want to hear about how I made collage or the materials I used. Because the works are geometric and abstract grids, I talked about positive and negative space. I misread my audience but was saved by Jeff Mueller, the gallery director who got the Q&A started when he told them my work was made with hand-painted paper collage. The audience thought the work was printmaking! Jeff told everyone they would see the work differently from up close, and they immediately walked up to look and started to ask questions. I learned an important lesson: Never assume you know what an audience sees, and never assume you know what an audience wants to hear.
The quote above by Douglas Adams – “I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be” perfectly described my situation.
A NEW COLLAGE SERIES: TRIANGLES INTO DIAMONDS
My recent collage METRO Series show geometric grids with squares and rectangles. Some rectangles have interior triangles. The new TRIANGLE series show geometric grids where triangles become diamonds. The spaces are opening up. There’s more texture and contrast.
The collage above (image: 11″ x 10″), shows thin white papers that create triangles stacked point over point and reveal black diamonds (negative space) below. Black is painted drawing paper. It was a lot of fun to create overlapping triangles. Shapes vary. Notice top and bottom rows are cut. Nothing was pre-planned.
The collage above is a horizontal grid (image: 8.5″ x 11″) with 6 rows of black paper triangles. It’s a collage in 3 layers. Touch the collage and you feel the black collage papers sit on top of the white Japanese rice paper pasted below. The rice paper covers another layer with black vertical lines below.
The collage above (image: 11″ x 9″) includes black diamonds and horizontal stripes on thin white rice paper. Notice the black diamonds are stacked triangles. It’s difficult to see what’s on top (positive) and what’s below (negative).
Black and White are Colors
My blacks and whites are not pure. I work with color even in black and white. I add Nickel Azo Yellow acrylic to Zinc or Titanium White. I add Pyrole Red acrylic to Carbon or Ivory Black. I might also add Turquoise Thalo Blue to the blacks. I work with a palette knife as I layer acrylic paints. My blacks and whites include red, yellow and blue.
The collage above (image: 11″ x 9″), is made with many overlapping white triangles that create the black diamond spaces behind. The black negative space is flat painted paper. This collage is open. I framed it and deliberately left it unglazed. I want you to see glue, smudges, and the hand of the artist. You can touch it and you’ll feel the overlapping white papers.
I’m continuing to work with triangles. These images will grow into larger works on canvas.
IMAGE: METRO GRID
Typically I work with squares. Now I work with triangles. The image above is titled Metro, paper and acrylic on panel, 24″x24″ (2012). Notice there are triangles inside rectangles. Triangles are emerging.
WHY TRIANGLES?
I saw an image of an African textile with a diamond pattern in black and white that inspired the new triangle diamond series. I am intrigued with triangle patterns and love black and white. I think black and white are colors (many times I insinuate yellow into white and red into black). I think there are so many ways you can create patterns with triangles. It all depends on the shape of the triangles and how they stack.
IMAGE: 640_nikkal 1_ 11×10
The TRIANGLE DIAMOND collage above (image: 9″x10″) was the first small work in the new series, Four were exhibited at the Silvermine Galleries recently. Now they’re back in my studio and I plan to play with the design in a larger format. I will look at the small work as I create a large work. It may look different.
I need a lot of papers if I plan to work in large format. I’ve been painting papers for days. Every paper was black or white. Then, I decided to detour from black and white to painting colors for a collage with thin diamonds. I started to paint papers in green, brown, teal blue, golden yellow, black, white and red.
IMAGE: 640_triangles diamonds canvas 24 x 24
The image above is a new finished collage with diamonds. It’s a geometric grid on 24″ x 24″ canvas made with painted papers. Notice there are triangles inside diamonds in this painting. I love the colors. It was so much fun to paint colors in layers, color over color, and scrape into the paint to create stripes and patterns. It was a challenge to place the papers on the diagonal. I didn’t lay the papers out in advance. The collage grew organically.
IMAGE close up triangles diamonds canvas
The image above is a close up of the collage and shows overlapping papers before they were glued down.
IMAGE: painted papers on the floor.
The image above shows a growing stack of painted papers on newsprint on the floor in my studio. I know I need many, many more papers.
Thank you for reading. Please email me comments and questions. I have more triangle and diamond collages in process, and will write about the work in upcoming newsletters.