COLLAGE TAXONOMY
Fragments Arranged to Emphasize the Compositional Whole
The Collage Taxonomy Project is an ongoing survey of the wider collage community that attempts to define the language we use to talk about collage. Visit the project’s website to suggest words or contribute definitions.
Some collagists assemble fragments into compositions to juxtapose different ideas. From this we get Surrealism, a healthy selection of Dadaist work, and a diverse and varied bag of art where the disparate elements of the pictures are meant to be read as distinguished from one another. Fewer collage artists are arranging fragments into a compositional whole where the gestalt of the picture is the art. When this happens, we suggest this should be called “collage painting”.
The term comes to us from Carole Bleistein, who defines collage painting with great precision. She defines it as, “A painting, made with paper and other mixed media that is 80% glued and collaged onto a substrate.” This statement alone does not distinguish collage painting from another type of collage, but Bleistein makes an important distinction: “It represents a compositional whole.”
Bleistein’s Farmland Series #4 combines Japanese papers with sumi ink, acrylic and watercolour painting and pen. The paper fragments coalesce into a composition that abstractly reflects the patchwork of fields seen from above. Farmland Series #4 is an example of collage painting, but to understand the genre, one must understand painting’s context in Modernism.
In Kolaj #18, Ric Kasini Kadour explores the idea of Collage Painting and discusses the artwork of five artists: Carole Bleistein, Janyce Boynton, Benon Lutaaya, Colin Talcroft, and Eva Richardson.
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The Collage Taxonomy Project is an ongoing survey of the wider collage community that attempts to define the language we use to talk about collage. Visit the project’s website to suggest words or contribute definitions.
Image (top):
Modeling Figure
by Benon Lutaaya
71″x47.2″
paper collage on canvas
2016
Image (centre):
Farmland Series #4
by Carole Bleistein
24″x30″x2″
collage on canvas