Kolaj is a quarterly, printed, 10″x8″ art magazine
featuring reviews and surveys of contemporary collage. The magazine takes an international perspective on collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century art movement.
SUBSCRIBE OR ORDER A COPY
INSIDE THE ISSUE
Kolaj Magazine exists to report on the International Collage Community and how collage is making its way into the world.
Overlooked by Portland, Oregon collagist Clive Knights is on the cover of Kolaj 43. His essay, “The Fluctuation of Likeness” speaks to the Necessity of Misrecognition. He writes, “Art reveals a part of something that perpetually extends beyond the edges of our reach, where nevertheless, the very act of reaching imparts an unsubstitutable, somewhat melancholic joy (though oddly reassuring) in the impossibility of the puzzle ever being completed.”
Recently in Ireland, there has been a growing understanding of the vital need to sustain our artists. In “Stability, Foundations & Flourishing”, Irish collagist Anthony D Kelly shares his experience with basic income for the arts in Ireland.
In “Everything a Little Richer”, Michael Joshua Rowin interviews photomontagist Mark Rappaport about the way he thinks about images, art, and cinema. “It’s both funny and tragic, but what you bring out is even more tragic because it seems to speak to how all films imagine or suggest an ideal viewer or the gaze of the entire world but can never actually obtain it since not everyone’s looking, not everyone cares.”
Ric Kasini Kadour‘s Editorial, “Blank Cartridge Pistol”, speaks to making art in today’s world. “When my art is stored neatly in my flat file, I am shooting blanks.”
The artists in “The Rose” used archival materials, magazines, photographs, self-portraits, paint, scraps of paper, ceramics, textiles, film—then cut, ripped, and torn—sometimes using their bodies as part of the process—to take apart what was and assemble a “female” narrative. Tiffany Dugan offers us a report of the exhibition which is now a book.
Anthony Michael Ryder considers the relationship of collage and trauma in “A Communion of Pain”. He wrote, “I often create work through an external medium that gives me a sense of control, allowing me to witness, to make, and to inquire…After witnessing my mother’s attempted murder while in hospice for terminal cancer, it wasn’t just grief. It was the exposure of an entire architecture built on pseudo-mutuality.”
Emily Denlinger writes about taking her “Gain of Function” project to Carnival in New Orleans. “Most of my personal experience with collective effervescence has happened during political rallies. Being on site during Carnival allowed me to broaden my experience with collective effervescence and participate in the folklore, customs and rituals surrounding these events.”
In the feature, “Selections from the Collection”, we showcase artwork from the Kolaj Institute Collection that has been curated by participants in the Curating Collage Workshop. In Kolaj 43, we hear from Chapel Hill, North Carolina artist Susan Simpson about Self-Inflicted Regret by Meikel Church.
In this issue’s round-up of collage news, we report on Montreal, Quebec artist Emmanuel Laflamme‘s public art at Ubisoft in Montreal; an exhibition of 20th century surrealist Leonora Carrington in Paris; a book of poetry and collage, Easy Tiger, by Alexandria, Virginia collagist and writer Evan Nicholls; and news from Kolaj Institute about Kolaj Fest New Orleans, the 2026 World Collage Day Poster Artist, and PoetryXCollage. German magazine Wissenschaft und Frieden published a selection of political collage.
ARTIST PORTFOLIOS
Each issue of Kolaj Magazine features portfolios of contemporary artists alongside critical commentary as a means of developing a deeper understanding of collage as both a medium and a genre. To be considered, register with the Kolaj Magazine Artist Directory at www.kolajmagazine.com.
Michael Eble
Lafayette, Louisiana, USA
“The architectural language of these buildings informs the shapes and forms within the work, grounding abstraction in a strong sense of place.”
Maryam Hosseinnia
Salmiya, Kuwait
“They looked worn and aged; one shoe had a smudge of dirt, and the other had a piece of green leaf clinging to it as if one was hanging on to life! The color green reminded me how much my mother appreciated it.”
Terri Sanders
Porter, Texas, USA
“Symbolism and iconography defines a culture and historical location. This series is created with symbolism from my own personal experiences.”
Janine Nichols
New York, New York, USA
“I often compare the process to water-witching with myself as diviner, hovering images above one another, waiting for elements to be drawn together irresistibly, reunited despite never having met.”
John Paul Gardner
Sauquoit New York, USA
“The hand-painted papers, printed fragments, and precisely cut shapes become the foundation for compositions that hover between organic and architectural.”