Usually working with paper collage and found images in magazines, I've recently started making digital collages with a mixture of magazines already at home and images found online. There has definitely been the pressure during lockdown to utilise the time and being in two minds between the options of relaxing while you can and to also frantically make and explore new processes with the extra time. My work explores the over saturation of everyday images, contrasting the familiar with the surreal to create constructed worlds, which seems a lot more relevant currently. Combining the familiarity of living spaces with the vast and serine landscapes in these pieces, I think they've taken on an added layer of escapism and collective longing. 

Artist Statement - I’m a paper collage artist who explores the images we see as a part of the everyday to create surreal worlds and alternate realities within the isolated space of a room. I’m fascinated by how collage can be used as a tool to understand our own reality in the age of over saturation and the constant stream of visual information. By repurposing contemporary and vintage magazines, I keep the original images while stretching their function, playing with their rich colours, textures and manipulating scale and perspective. Collage allows for a controlled chaos and the tactile cut and paste process can be just as interesting as its result. Altering the familiar homely environments and hyper reality in the adverts where the images originate, I aim to match the aesthetic of over saturation while immersing the audience in constructed worlds.

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Rachel Hughes

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