Collage Construction from the collection of South Carolina Arts Commission

Collage Construction, 1964

mixed media collage

36 x 36 in

Signature: titled on lower left; signed on lower right

The Collage Construction, as most of my work, derives from architecture, being concerned with a basically masonry-like treatment of materials, as a sense of space, and the changing effects of natural light.

Mediterranean Romanesque architecture more than any other has deeply influenced my work, not only by its simple planes, textures and colors, but also in its special way of reemphasizing older materials. This may consist of many elements. Very often Roman stones salvaged from earlier buildings, originally intended for a totally different purpose, in juxtaposition, are all finally integrated into a new and different expression. In a very similar way a collage is frequently composed of paper or other materials with different histories, other reasons for existing, which have little to do with their present function. In a short-term context, it too is involved in a very definite reuse of the past, if often a very recent one, only as old as yesterday’s newspaper.

Obviously little in a work of art is completely new. Most have been passed on, handed down, re-found, rescued; and this is particularly true in my work, that very often the materials retain something of their earlier existence which, though submerged, ultimately contribute to the effect of the whole.