Photomontage: Eva Lake

1978 - 2008

Before I ever montaged, I collected old magazines and nostalgia.

As it was the images I loved most, I had no problem cutting them up to create a different story.

I started right around the time of punk in the late 70s. All of the black and white photomontages directly above were made at that time.

I was interested in the Dadaists John Heartfield and Hannah Hoch and the Pop artist Richard Hamilton.

In the early 80s the work then took a turn towards New Romanticism. I was reading Jane Austen and other classic novels, plus the Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki.

Over the years I've made all kinds of art but I keep coming back to photomontage.

I've called it a Bedroom Art as often that was the only place I had to work in.

You can make it out of a suitcase. I was never one to just slap things together though and sometimes images traveled around with me for years before I used them.

In 2002 I had a Collage Show at the White Gallery at PSU, showing works from 1982 - 2002, choosing 30 montages out of hundreds for the show.

As I went through my inventory I saw what a constant art it had always been. No matter what else is going on, I've always collaged.

9/11 was oddly a time of regeneration for me. Terrible as that sounds, I know I was not the only artist to feel suddenly not alone in their paranoias. 

I returned to previous themes and works I had made years ago had a renewed meaning.  

As it turns out, many artists montage, though they might not take it all that seriously.

I often meet artists who got their start in the fanzine and the collages they made for it.

Those fanzine days may be behind them and now they are on to hot galleries and the like, but they still make the occasional collage.

The photomontages directly above and below are works of 2007: the Judd Montages.

The montages below are all also from 2007:

These montages with women and targets are all from 2008: (The full collection is here.)

I have posted more photomontages in my Diary.

Lovelake