Collage

Megan Phillips

Art History

Collage Assignment

            For my collage, I chose the theme of “one step at a time”. When reflecting on myself, my world, and how I view art, I feel each relate with this theme. Everything is a process with multiple levels. Each level is important in the way that one must leave a level to enter a new one. As an individual, I am constantly growing and changing whether physically or mentally. In the same way, my world is constantly changing and I am forced to adjust to my world’s changes. I feel that art is constantly changing as well. The thing that ties all of these elements together is not change, but the past. Without the past, these things are not able to be what they are now, or evolve into what they will eventually become. I wanted to show the importance of how the past reflects on the present and helps to evolve the future.

Decisions: I chose to incorporate a staircase as the center of my collage as to symbolize my view on myself, my world, and art.

Color: I chose to make the background more subdues by using black and white and then added color to the staircase to make it stand out from the background.

Light: I used light in the background to show that the staircase is in a cubed room as well as in the staircase itself to give a 3D effect.

Texture: I added texture to my collage by making the background of layered magazine pieces and then painting a sheer acrylic layer over. I also added texture into the staircase by using a painting style that gives a textured feel to it.

Volume: I incorporated volume into my collage by adding different tones of magazine pieces to show foreground and background in the circular room.

Line: I used like mainly in the staircase with the central vertical post and each step creates a defined line.

Space: To create space in my collage, I put the staircase in a cubed room to open the piece up and create movement.

Scale: I made the staircase the largest object in my collage to make it the focus and be interpreted as the most important element of my collage.

Symbolism:

1.     Staircase: The staircase represents me, my world, how I view art.

2.     Steps: Each step represents a moment in time whether past, present, or future.

3.     Room: The room is meant to symbolize the world to better emphasize the staircase as being me, my world, and my view of art residing in a world with other lives and views.

4.     Light at top of staircase: The light at the top of the staircase is there to symbolize the future whether that means personally, heaven, the future of the world, and the future of art.

5.     Pictures on steps: Each picture on a step is a person, place, or thing that is important to me and has made me who I am and who I will become. In the same way, this is meant to show how certain things have made art what it is today and will evolve it into what it will be in the future.

Elements:

You: All of the pictures that I included are pictures I have taken. Photography is my favorite past time and I felt it was important to incorporate that to show who I am.

Friends and Family: I incorporated pictures of my best friends and my cat Boots because he is the baby of my family.

Your town, community, school: I added pictures from my favorite spot in my hometown as well as my favorite spot on Belmont’s campus.

Your country: I added a picture of Chicago to show that America is very industrial and commercialized.

The world today: All of my pictures help to show the world today. I feel like things in the world today are very much about image, so I used images that reflected that superficial feel.

Art: Art to me means the freedom of individual expression. I think art is a way for me to express how I feel about myself, my life, and the things that are happening around me in a creative way. I think art fits into today’s world because we are a very commercialized world where visuals are important. Art helps us find depth and relate to the world around us.

History: Because of the past, I have leaned from mistakes, grown from experiences, and been influenced by the people I’ve encountered. History has shaped the world today in the same way. Because of the events and lives that have occurred, we have learned and evolved. Art relates to history because by seeing how art was used in a particular period of time, we can better understand that culture and society.