An email from Alain

My friend Alain lives in Belgium and does collage combined with pen and ink and also paper marbling. He is a creative artist and we have collaborated on numberous occasions across the seas...
Here is something he sent me today in email..."Traditional collage offers the artist a physical pleasure: wandering
through images within a magazine, ransacking piles of pictures, handmade
papers, and other ephemera. Infinite
creations result from haphazard findings, combining two fragments, two
motives. But, there are also physical limits from the results of
cutting your selected pieces, the size of an element, to colours and
textures and shadows... All expressions despite its own limits, are
constructive for the creator, which is truly the beginning rather than a
stopping point.
Seemingly, on the other end of the spectrum, is digital collage.
No more tactile sensation. Rather than feeling ones way through pieces,
objects, and found items in boxes, the artist searches through data file
listings, electronic archives, choosing to open this file or that one.
The artist performs as a magician in front of his computer. He
manipulates images, cuts and pastes, virtually, he creates with total
liberty to resize, change colours, reposition, melt the object into a
landscape, all due to the selected techniques. But, these liberties
alone are of no value, if the creative mind doesn't take control and use
artistic creativity.
Digital art, you ask, is it not impersonal, artificial to produce
colour copies or inkjet prints? Isn't such work spineless, lacking
creativity, movement or dimension?
I practice both types of collages. My work is a constant banter
between pen and mouse. A digital collage is assembled and then printed
to be worked over with China ink or enamel painting. Returning to the
computer, it is scanned again and electronically remanipulated.
Inversely, a manual collage can be scanned and produce an image that
will continue to create differing artistic results. A 'mother-work'
sometimes spawn off into dozens of 'daughter-works'."
Some of Alains' work is housed deep inside my website magikglasses. You can find a gallery of his older collage work here
I do like his term "mother-daughter works". A nice definition!!