Early Inspiration:
My practice involved exploring indexical links to repetitive techniques and the processes therein. Taking into consideration Marcel Duchamp’s found object named Fountain, I began to demonstrate how repetition and reproduction are linked to ideas of the eternal. When collage became my chosen method of working, research into its eventful past resulted in exploring the outrageous traits of Dadaists, who were convinced that the essential source of art was hidden in the depths of our subconscious. Dadaists utilized collage to express the confusing relationship that exists between reality, illusion and pictorial representation. This became hugely relevant to how my practice proceeded.
To begin, I experimented with collaging the same image multiple times to overthrow normal perception. Using photography and collage, I was working with repetitive techniques and reproducible images combining hundreds of photographs in one confusing collage. The process referenced the mass-produced found object Fountain as a key influence.
Later Stages and new Developments:
As my practice developed I became interested in a different form of collage. Matt Molloy, who used Time-Stacks, directed my attention to the importance of location. My past knowledge and experience of the place an image is taken began to redirect my process and I became aware of the influences of familiarity. It lead me to question; does past knowledge and experience effect the way works are viewed?
Searching for a method of working that would allow my viewers to engage in a process of recognition and familiarity; I selected two photographs to combine through Photoshop. Although the two separate photographs were a rational identification of landscapes, combined the standard landscape photographs merged creating more than one identifiable landscape in one image. The result being that the deceptive image immerses the viewer in an environment no longer significant to anyone but instead only to those who have a significant connection with that particular place.
My main Inspiration:
Matt Molloy the main inspiration for the processes I developed, uses photography as a preliminary means to create large-scale photo-shopped manipulations. I adopted his techniques and approached my photographs with this researched method of working resulting in some extremely effective imagery. As interesting as the standard method of collage had seemed, recreating time-stacked images through Photoshop was far more effective. My works are filled with ambiguity displaying no evidence of how the compositions evolved. Developing time-stacking collage through Photoshop has resulted in an elimination of what was previously perceived as multiple images collaged together. Through Photoshop I can merge multiple images combining them as one unique new place. A place relevant to some but unidentifiable to others.
