I posted a couple of years ago about wonderful collage artist Lola Dupré, in relation to new findings on the idea of a multiverse (which still simultaneously snares me as well as makes my skin crawl. have you seen 'Another Earth'?)
Since then, Lola's work seems to have taken a giant leap into the magical landscape of fellow collage artist Chris Berens (something about their figures feels akin). While these new beauties bare the signature markings of Lola's previous work, ( shattered images oddly reassembled rather than the traditional method of collage: amalgams of multiple existing works to create something both strange and new (MAX ERNST,)) these feel different to me, more mature. The pre-existing images are from photographer Lisa Carlotta & live and breath quite well on their own; but here, they have a more sharpened potency. They are almost inhuman in their exaggerations, images from circus mirrors of ourselves, and carry a quite melancholy in their fractured features.
My feelings on collage stem from a certain peculiar feeling of deformity I've carried along like a phantom limb for most of my life. When I was just about to enter the teenage wasteland, I had a sizable tumor removed from my sternum. This not only left me with the weird, lingering sensation of 'the medical gaze,' but also left my ribcage and sternum a bit re-arranged. The physical deformity is mostly noticeable to only me, but the psychic landscape of this fracturing has always left me feeling a bit distorted, a bit at odds with the dark terrain of my shape, a bit on edge with those things that are perfect & polished.
If there is a parallel world or universe, I wonder if my other 'other self' feels the same. I wonder if she knows how to re-assemble. If she knows how to move on, to feel whole, to become new.
2 comments :
i was JUST reading up on brit marling tonight! (talk about parallels.) another earth means a lot to me, and i do like the idea of possibly meeting my doppelgänger one day...but i'd be worried i'd disappoint myself. (what if there's just nothing there that's that interesting/important?) so maybe it's a good idea that we just have ourselves, only, for right now.
on a side note, surgery is always scary (and scar-y, for the most part). i hope for you to see wholeness returned to your sense of self soon. <3
I adore Lola Dupre. Her work is always so cerebral, and she's incredibly talented in general. It's cool to see her work evolving into different aesthetics, different "thematic landscapes," if you will.
Post a Comment