Empty Mirror

a literary magazine

Three collages by Alicia Cole

An entirely self-taught artist, Alicia Cole works in collage, drawing, fabric/embroidery, mixed media, works on canvas, and sculpture. While many of her drawings, paintings, mixed media, collage works, and works on canvas were created in hospitals, mental health centers, or homeless shelters, documenting hospitalization, mental health, and the shelter system, this body of … [Read more...]

Eight pieces by C.R. Resetarits

I like edges and refuse. I like rebuilding things, and I like composition, patterns, palettes, visual rhythms. The right combos make me happy or relaxed or amused. I used to rehab houses and found that was a nice physical outlet, but I'm too tired for that now so I make collages to take me out of my head and put me down on a flat palette. I try not to get ahead of the intent of … [Read more...]

Six collages by hiromi suzuki

For me, making collages is the most fun. First of all, I will cut the pages from the 1960s fashion magazines and the Scientific American, and put them into an empty confectionery box. Then I take the images out of the box and edit my original stories. It seems to be making paper dolls and playing in fiction as same as my childhood. After studying literature at the college, … [Read more...]

Abstract Musings: Kelly Schaub’s mixed media collages

A theatre artist and administrator for over 25 years, two main influences from the theatre guide Schaub’s work in the visual arts arena. First, she has always been moved by the ephemeral aspect of a theatre experience. Each performance is different and will never be duplicated exactly ever again. Second is the collaborative nature of the theatre, where artists with a range of … [Read more...]

Certain People by Lita Kenyon

Lita Kenyon’s mixed media pieces offer hints at humanity translated through persistent, abstract shapes. Living and working in Tacoma, WA near Seattle, collage and drawing is a search for form and how to make forms with an element of surprise becalming the inexplicable, urgent and awkward. With a keen interest in process, particularly the process of exploring the space … [Read more...]

Four collages by Janina Aza Karpinska

I began using collage --- scraps torn from magazines, calendars, auction catalogues --- as part of a group exhibition featuring 'Icons' about 8 years ago, where I discovered my Polish-Ossetian roots came through in the rich colours and composition. Working so intuitively has made the process even quicker as I've learned to trust it more, I barely have to look at what I'm doing, … [Read more...]

Four collages by Kon Markogiannis

A series of collages inspired by great artists of the past such as Kurt Schwitters. Bits and pieces of newspaper, calendar pages, and other discarded ephemera take on new life by being combined, juxtaposed and superimposed; through playful improvisation and experimentation, they form mysterious alliances proving that even the (seemingly) worthless can have value and meaning. … [Read more...]

Book Release – Collage by Women: 50 Essential Contemporary Artists, edited by Rebeka Elizegi

Now available for pre-order, Collage by Women presents fifty international women artists working in the field of collage today through a rigorous selection of their works. Curated by the Spanish collage artist Rebeka Elizegi, designed by Alehop, and edited by Promopress Editions in English and Spanish, Collage by Women gives space to voices from all backgrounds, origins, and … [Read more...]

Beatnik: Collages by Rebeka Elizegi

The series focuses on the Beat Generation as a cultural phenomenon, more specifically in the women poets who participated in the movement and who historically have had less visibility than their male colleagues. It is a tribute to those women poets, who have remained in the shadow in the history of literature. Beatnik is the derogatory term with which the conservative American … [Read more...]

Artworks by Doren Robbins

My work is connected to the folk, DADA, and Surrealist traditions of collage, photomontage, and mixed-media works discussed in Herta Wescher's book Collage and Robert Motherwell's The DADA Painters and Poets. Duende is an incident of imagination. … [Read more...]

Four collages by Jack Felice

Each collage concerns itself with merging culture with the visual image. The pieces are intended to allow the audience enough space to create individual (and at times parallel) narratives. I am interested in the imperfections of found artwork and the importance of identity. … [Read more...]

Rhed Fawell: Collage and Embroidery

My collages explore the deconstruction and reconstruction of images. The process allows me to play conceptually with a theme or thought. By deconstructing the original reality of an image, I can begin to let it tell a different story. Once I find my visual starting point, I will start a process of deconstruction/reconstruction, combining the use of ripping, cutting, layering, … [Read more...]

12 collages by Bill Wolak

I make collages out of all kinds of materials. Most are made out of paper engravings. Many collages are digitally generated or enhanced. To begin a piece, I select some sources—either color or black and white. If I’m using magazines or prints or old books, I cut out some images or parts of images that interest me. Then I start working on a background or some other sort of … [Read more...]

All These Sensations: 11 artworks by Lita Kenyon

Painting With abstract painting I'm interested in a process which operates within a personal narrative in concert with the unexpected. I paint, remove paint and repaint striving to bring forward forms, strokes and colors that singularly are incomplete but adjoined constitute a truth about their incongruity. Each painting has its own individualism. Mixed Media/Collage My … [Read more...]

8 new mixed-media pieces by Claudio Parentela

I like to discover myself little by little ... a little every day ... every instant ... in the time following the time … following the moon with my feet ... following the most distant planets with my black gloves. Every collage is a journey in and out of me with my dirt pajamas. A beautiful and unique way to communicate with me and with you, now and in the past ... in … [Read more...]

12 Collages by Bill Wolak

I make collages out of all kinds of materials. Most are made out of paper engravings. Many collages are digitally generated or enhanced. To begin a piece, I select some sources—either color or black and white. If I’m using magazines or prints or old books, I cut out some images or parts of images that interest me. Then I start working on a background or some other sort of … [Read more...]

Seven Portraits of Women

Cassandra Keenan's art possesses dadaist, surrealist, cubist and fluxus qualities. Spatial asymmetry, disconnection, linear imbalance, precariousness and abruptness also are recurring in her work. Many of her collages are feminist and are inspired by fashion. … [Read more...]

enveloppes: collages by Ria Bauwens

Artist's statement Having been a mail artist for the past 20 years has shaped me as a collage maker. Being a trained photographer gives me the opportunity to find beauty in small discarded patches of color, graphics or in images. I work with rescued found papers (newspapers, photo’s, zines, old books), dried nature pieces that i collect on a daily basis.I use glue, pens, … [Read more...]

Constellations: Collages by Tim Stuemke

This series of collages is based on deconstructing the concept of what a constellation is. The mythical creature is no longer a series of points and lines, but a singular location. The boundary lines are now a mere jumble of angles without a destination. … [Read more...]

Higher Education: 11 collages by Cory Peeke

I’m a collage maker for much the same reason I’m a curator – I love images. This affection has led me to collect remnant imagery; the largely ignored and seemingly inconsequential bits of ephemera that once had a purpose, still have a presence, but now idle in disuse. I combine, layer, juxtapose, glue, tape and re-contextualize these bits and pieces of detritus in order to … [Read more...]

The Way Home II – Assemblages by Michael Wilson

By isolating and simplifying objects and their environments, an elemental nature can be revealed that exists in all things, real and imagined. This is the thread connect us all. Through the particular, the universe can be obtained. The power of art is the power of transcendence from beauty and the particular into the sublime and the universe and back again. I hope that, in … [Read more...]

13 Collages by Rhed Fawell

I think I’m a collagist simply because I love images. I'm a magpie for ephemera, searching out and collecting interesting visual material. The poetic quality of vintage material has a particular draw for me. There’s often a shrouded sense of sadness in old images. They are memories that have been forgotten and discarded as they lost their immediate relationship to the … [Read more...]

The Enfolded: Collage Paintings by Ginnie Gardiner

My working method since the mid-1990s has been to create equivalent color palettes from my collage and montage studies for translation into the medium of oil paint. In all of my paintings, I have sought color mastery and color is the subject of my work. Both Josef Albers and Charles W. Hawthorne were obsessed with creating the illusion of transparency in the opaque medium of … [Read more...]

The Palette Series: Collages by Mariia Magoly

For me, whether your work is a craft or an art, first of all it has to be sincere and important for you. That’s a secret of happiness. At least a big part of it. My works shouldn’t make the world better. I just need them to exist. And hope that someone else also does. The Palette project consists of five works in the technique of collage. This palette could belong to … [Read more...]

Undressing the Darkness: 12 Collages by Bill Wolak

Collage undresses the darkness with a mirror’s secret undertow. It’s a dance done on burning kites while dreaming at the speed of light. Expectant as nakedness, collage is a door that surfaces in the shipwreck of your sleep. It’s a caress with the irresistible softness of a slipknot in a velvet blindfold. At its best, like poetry, collage is a moan just beyond delirium. I … [Read more...]

Private Eyes: Collages

Artist's statement: I'm always creating the collages like "Automatic writing". Putting pics of roses, creeks and chimneys on watercolour papers. Painting Liquitex gels and linseed oil on these. When I fall asleep, they spend the night to wait for the other stories. In the morning light, I paste the unknown actors of the untitled movies on roses, creeks and chimneys. … [Read more...]

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Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine which publishes new work each Friday.

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