Putting It Out There: Projects & Practices of Collage Artists at Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2025

SYMPOSIUM AT KOLAJ FEST NEW ORLEANS 2025

Putting It Out There: Projects & Practices of Collage Artists

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Kolaj Fest New Orleans is a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society, 25-29 June 2025. Visit the website to learn more, see an overview of the program, and register to attend.

While holding space equally for both, at Kolaj Institute, we make a distinction between artists engaged in collage as personal acts of expression and those whose artists practice is vocational or professional. “Everyone can be creative and everyone can make collage. We should honor and support that,” said Kolaj Institute Director Ric Kasini Kadour. “There is something different, however, when an artist chooses to put their work out in the community. It ceases to be about personal expression and becomes part of the community’s discourse. They need a different kind of recognition and support.”

During the Symposium at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, we will hear from Jamie Hughes, Emily Denlinger, Flanzella, Grace Wilbanks each of whom are putting their art into the cultural ecosystem. They are exhibiting and publishing; getting commissions; working it on social media; engaging their communities; and doing the work of culture all while trying to live lives as human beings with all that that entails. They will speak about contemporary art projects and their artist practice.

After the death of her mother, New Orleans, Louisiana artist Jamie Amdal Hughes brought to Kolaj Institute’s Collage Artist Residency: Scotland a well-worn copy of The Water-babies, a novel by Charles Kingsley which was her mother’s favorite book. Hughes intended to make collage with it but ended up going down a completely different path. She made the collage Boussole des Vents, and unwittingly began a contemporary art project that would be realized in a collage installation exhibited at Kolaj Institute Gallery in April and May 2024 as part of “Joy & Grief”, an exhibition where fourteen International Collage Artists explored the obversity of Joy and Grief. The artist wrote, “Amdalia was born out of grief and trauma, but the collages I created in this period helped me reconnect with the joy, love, and creativity that was the foundation of our Amdal family.” Hughes will speak about the journey of making Amdalia, from its inception through to its exhibition and publication.

Cape Girardeau, Missouri artist Emily Denlinger‘s multifaceted “Gain of Function: New Mutation” project includes collages, installations, locative collage, and performance. She wrote, “The project was created in response to research surrounding the intersections of military-industrial complex, ecology, simulations, mutations, and futurology. I am interested in the way these topics surface consciously and subconsciously while I am creating. My images capture my psychological interpretation of reality. The images reference cell reproduction, genetic mutations, breakdowns in communication, purposeful mutations of information, and misinformation campaigns. The analog collaged figures are created from fashion magazines and vintage National Geographic magazines. These referencing contemporary society, distribution of information, classism, human interactions, and attempts to understand and attempt to control the natural world around us. The figures are collaged into ethereal amorphous dreamlike landscapes, void of a particular time and place.” Denlinger will discuss the many facets of the project and the ways she engaged the community.

Dallas, Texas collagist Flanzella describes her artistic process as organized chaos. “Using intuition and analysis, piles of potential start to form on the desk. These piles have complimenting colors that juxtapose the original meaning. Carefully, the pieces are cut, sorted, arranged, and glued together.” Flanzella’s artist practice is the opposite of organized chaos. In recent years, she has exhibited her work, presented at art fairs, hosted meet-ups, taught workshops, sold prints and collage kits, and started Discord channel and a collage-centric YouTube channel which is approaching ten thousand subscribers.

Atlanta, Georgia collage artist Grace Wilbanks (image top) has been “creating art out of everything from my dad’s newspapers and National Geographic magazines to dinner menus, coasters, and coffee grounds since I can remember.” Her passion “centers on the chase of chaotic beauty found in frenzy-like explosions of colors, typography, images, and textures.” In January, she told Shoutout Atlanta, “My artistic journey is just getting started, but for now, I’d like the world to know that there’s an artist who honors the chaotic beauty in all of us. I would like to express that I’m an artist collaging about the wildness in our hearts and psyches. I see the beauty in the sidewalk, in the birds, in our souls.” Wilbanks will share her art journey and share experiences about “being an artist while having a full-time job, juggling an art and real-world career, and how that influences my work.”

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Jamie Amdal Hughes is the daughter of two “black sheep” from Decatur, Illinois who settled in New Orleans when she was just a toddler. After years of struggling to reconnect to her artistic roots through the day to day demands of motherhood, a career in real estate, and caring for aging parents, she found relief, freedom, and playful creativity through collage in her early 40s. Her mother abruptly died in the summer of 2023 followed by her father in 2024, and she subsequently dove into collage as a way to process her grief and trauma, reaffirm her identity as an artist, and connect with the larger creative community. She continues her collage work with a focus on honoring her family legacy while also affirming her own artistic voice. Hughes’ collage installation, Amdalia, was exhibited as part of “Joy & Grief: An Exhibition of Collage” at the Kolaj Institute Gallery in April and May 2025. She also had work in “Amuse-Bouche” at LeMieux Galleries and “S&WBNO Billing Issues” at Second Story Gallery, as part of Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2024. The artist also took part in Collage Artist Residency Scotland in September 2023. Learn more on Facebook @jamieamdal.hughes.

Emily Denlinger has worked as Area Head and Professor of Digital Arts, Photography and New Media at Southeast Missouri State University since 2009. Originally from Ohio, she holds BFA in 2D Art with a Concentration in Photography from Bowling Green State University, and an MA in Digital Art and an MFA in Photography and Digital Art from Maryland Institute College of Art. Her collages have been exhibited across the USA and are held in collections internationally. Denlinger’s collage animation, Angel Baby vs. Drone Eagle, was part of Collage on Screen program at Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2024. She also took part in Kolaj Institute’s Collage on Screen Artist Residency in 2023 and the Collage & Illustration Residency: Frankenstein. In addition to her gallery practice, Denlinger creates accessible wearable art that is created for commissions or sold in the local community at boutiques and fundraising sales. In her free time, she works with the Cape Girardeau County Clerk’s office to promote voting and voter registration and as an election judge. Learn more at the Kolaj Magazine Artist Directory and www.emilydenlinger.com.

Flanzella studied Multimedia & Communications with a focus in Studio Art at McMaster University. Originally from Toronto, Flanzella lives and works in Dallas, Texas. Learn more at the Kolaj Magazine Artist Directory and www.flanzella.com.

Collagist Grace Wilbanks has received commissions for large-scale collages, including a mural of Airstream travel trailers, and has participated in the Art Groove Experience exhibition in New York City. She holds a BA in Public Relations from the University of Georgia. Originally from rural Virginia, the artist lives and works in Atlanta. Learn more at the Kolaj Magazine Artist Directory, www.gracewilbanksart.com and on Instagram @Grace_Wilbanks_Art_.

Kolaj Fest New Orleans is a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society, 25-29 June 2025. Visit the website to learn more, see an overview of the program, and register to attend.