The British Royal Family Down With Collage
Richard Burnett writing in the Montreal Gazette recently brought to our attention that the British Royal Family are apparently fans of collage. In a story about Montreal collage artist and rising art star André Monet, Burnett got Monet to open up about how he came to collage portraits of Prince William and Kate Middleton. “One day I walked into the Opera Gallery and asked them if they wanted to represent me and they said yes. Then they asked me do a portrait of Will and Kate for their wedding,” Monet tells Burnett. “The Royal Family loved his work so much he was then asked to do a portrait of the Queen,” reports Burnett. Monet paints realistic portraits of celebrities on backgrounds of old newspapers and books. In his September 2014 exhibition at Galerie de Bellefeuille in Montreal, his subjects were a who’s who of 20th century icons: Audrey Hepburn, Lou Reed, and Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver. The collage of media underneath each nearly monochromatic painting speaks to the 21th century’s continued exaltation of celebrity, referencing the litres of ink and newsprint that go into reinforcing it. One can see more of Andre Monet’s work at Galerie de Bellefeuille in Montreal.
This News and Notes item originally appeared in Issue Ten. To see other News and Notes from the world of collage, SUBSCRIBE to Kolaj or PURCHASE ISSUE TEN.
Image:
Lou Reed
by André Monet
48″x36″
mixed media on panel
Courtesy of the artist