Paper collage, 21 x 29.7 cm
Eva Gjaltema's photo-collage series Hiding/Hidden represents a critical examination of the societal constraints that have historically inhibited women's opportunities to express their talents. Utilizing cutouts from 80-year-old German Cinema magazines, Gjaltema synthesizes visual art with social commentary, crafting a nuanced portrayal of female self-perception and societal expectations. Her work contributes to ongoing discourses surrounding gender and identity, presenting a complex visual narrative that resonates within both historical and contemporary contexts.
Paper collage, 21 x 29.7 cm
Originally trained as a photographer I still work a lot with my old Polaroid sx 70 camera and therefore still buy the (new) polaroid films. For the rest I regularly buy different kinds of paper, books and photo albums at antique stores, but also look a lot at flea markets and give way shops as well. Different kinds of (plant based) paint and gold leaf have also been part of my art practice the last 3 years.
Paper collage, 21 x 29.7 cm
I am a very intuitive person and I can become very obsessed about a certain project when I am in the process of creating. It feels like a complicated puzzle I want to solve before I return to normal daily life again, since it somehow liberates me to make collages. I have always been very productive, working on many projects at the same time, even when my private life didn’t really allow me to, but I always felt a big urgency to create. Fortunately I have enough space now to leave projects for a while and can revisit them with a fresh view. After creating and finishing new work, I start writing about it and l scan the work. I put it online and I look for ways to put the work out there.
Paper collage, 21 x 29.7 cm
Paper collage, 21 x 29.7 cm
I have been keeping scrapbooks since I was around six years old. It somehow felt very natural for me to cherish beautiful images from magazines, so I cut them out and pasted them all together in different notebooks and wrote texts next to the images. During my photography studies at the Royal Academy in the Hague in the Netherlands (between 2004 and 2008), I started to use archival and found images within my projects and mixed them with my own diverse photographic images. I started painting and cutting out some parts of my own family photos to be able to open up about memories that haunted me in daily life.
When I moved to Germany in 2012 and shortly after moving became a mother in a foreign country, a new phase of my life with many intense feelings started. I started making collages about the challenges of motherhood, a topic I felt was not very visible within the fine art photography scene yet. I started cutting up enlarged copies of my own polaroid images and reconstructed them in a way that would express my feelings about my new identity as a mother. It felt so liberating to do this. My self-published book ‘The First Three Years’ (2018) showcases these images and more analog collages I did around motherhood, and I combined them with diverse texts.
The use of different sorts of (plant based) paint, found photo negatives besides old vintage book material, started to play a bigger role in my work as well since 2019. Shortly before COVID I already felt the urgency to focus more on sustainability within my art practice. Since then I am constantly looking for ways to reuse old material, instead of printing new work.
Paper collage, 21 x 29.7 cm
Eva Gjaltema is a Dutch visual artist who has lived in Berlin since 2012. She works mainly with the medium of photography, collage and mixed media, where the photo book also plays an important role.She has a Masters Degree in Cultural Studies and a Bachelor's Degree in Photographic Design from the Royal Academy for the Visual Arts in The Hague. She is currently studying to become a (German) Art Therapist.Her work deals with various inner processes that belong to each stage of life and continue to evolve on an ongoing basis. At the same time, within her projects she explores how we can relate to our surroundings, where we are always interrelated to each other and part of a bigger universe. She has created projects around the notion of the (patchwork)family, (childhood)memories, the (female)body, (partner)relationships, motherhood, environmental and social issues.
Paper collage, 21 x 29.7 cm
Eva Gjaltema is currently based in Berlin, Germany.
For Your Viewing Pleasure
Donny Bradfield (b. 1992, St. Louis) better known as Shabez Jamal, is an interdisciplinary artist based in New Orleans, LA. His work, rooted in still portraiture, experimental video, and performance, interrogates physical, political, and social-economical space by using queerness, not as a means of speaking about sexuality, but as a catalyst to challenge varying power relations.
Through parallel practices of drawing and three-dimensional construction, artist Marianne Desmarais attempts to alter space through the manipulation of form, optics, and surface. She works with geometry and material characteristics to amplify the relationships between constructive parts, media, and perception.
Y. Malik Jalal (b. 1994) employs traditional methods of craft and collage to expand dialogues on black history, power, and humanity. He draws aesthetically and conceptually from the lineages of his mediums, welding steel and bronze to address histories formed by morphing industries and inequalities. Jalal references traditional crafts and practices alongside pop culture, weaving African customs among violent American events, and employing symbols from advertising and Black horror in an embodiment of collective anxiety.
As a material based artist working through abstraction and alternative forms of image- making Dala Nasser applies an interdisciplinary approach to her works ranging from painting, to performance, and films. Nasser’s works examine the human and non- human entanglement in the perpetually deteriorating ecological, historical and political conditions resulting from practices of extraction and generations of colonial erasure.
Born and raised in the post-industrial city of Fall River, MA, where he resides to this day, Harry Gould Harvey IV draws inspiration from the ecological fabric of his native South Coast Region to deconstruct the building blocks of empire and illuminate the weight of anonymous labor. Foraging materials from downed or cut trees, destroyed Gilded Age mansions, gutted Gothic churches, and his subconscious, Harvey creates mystical and diagrammatic drawings housed inside hand-built wood frames akin to reliquaries and large-scale sculptural installations which evoke lost histories of marginalized artisanship and backbreaking toil in the name of American industry and luxury.
Out and About
What to watch, read, and experience, as curated by the Collé team.
READ
General Idea edited by AA Bronson
Published on the occasion of the huge retrospective ‘General Idea’ at the National Gallery of Canada, Ontario, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2022–2023), this volume constitutes the most comprehensive source on the Canadian collective General Idea, founded in Toronto in 1969 by Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal, and AA Bronson, and active until the death of Partz and Zontal in 1994.
WATCH
The Timeless, Ancient Language of Art - Wangechi Mutu - TED
Using found materials and mesmerizing structures that unearth deep-rooted emotions, Wangechi Mutu's visual creations explore and celebrate women's role in our collective history. From ancient rock carvings in the Sahel to her own chimeric abstractions, she shares her journey of self-discovery and reminds us all that we already speak the most ancient language of all: art.
LISTEN
The Elektrik Karousel by The Focus Group
"Elektrik Karousel" by Julian House is a musical evolution that blends electronic, guitar, and exotic instruments into a unique style, reflecting his collage-like design work. Assisted by Broadcast, House's work distills elements of jazz, psychedelia, and various cultural influences, creating a rich and unusual musical tapestry that echoes the mood of different artistic genres and eras.
