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| Jennifer Greenburg, I was a vendor of drink but not love, archival pigment ink, 24 x 30 inches, edition of 3, $3500 |
Popularized by the Dadaists and Constructivism, photomontage has provided artists with the ability to go beyond photography's primal pursuit to represent reality. In an unparalleled way, the technique has offered original, or at least re-interpreted, worlds in photographic form — artworks that seamlessly combine many photographs into one, new vision and idea.
Today, we can discuss photomontage in both its analog and digital versions, its numerous technical possibilities within both these realms, and the issues it faces in contemporary art.
This week we feature some of our favorite photomontages from our flat-files.
Jennifer Greenburg
Using digital photomontage, Jennifer Greenburg inserts herself into scenes of mid-century America. Her series Revising History, seamlessly incorporates images of Greenburg within the compositions of anonymous vintage photographs. The resulting black and white images look like those found in a family album.
In images like I was a vendor of drink but not love, Greenburg chose an image that depicts a character she can identify with. She researched who the subject was and tried to figure out what her experience was the moment the image was captured. The intention behind the work is to raise a conversation with her audience about how we interpret media and personal memories to establish a collective history.
To learn more about what goes on behind Jennifer Greenbug's images, read our interview with her here.
Maggie Taylor
The Harbinger, by Maggie Taylor, combines old photos and illustrations, mainly representing a crow cawing on top of an uncanny flying device and a polar bear placidly swimming across an iceless sea. The resulting artwork is a surrealistic dreamscape that commands careful attention from the viewer to fully grasp.
Taylor's photomontages, a combinatinon of the historical and contemporary, consist of 19th century daguerreotypes, old illustrations, found photographs, and diverse objects and artifacts —all layered together through meticulous digital image editing. You may learn more about her practice here.
Chaco Terada
Chaco Terada's creative process is meditative and organic, her workflow is purely intuitive, her images are inspired by her daily musings and interactions with her surroundings. A master calligrapher and visual poet, Terada uses multiple layers of silk, images, sumi and pigment inks to create her works.
There is something very "natural" about Terada's photomontages. In Dialogue, somehow the mechanicity often attributed to photomontage — the layering of dissasociated elements — is completely blurred in the misty quality of the work. The delicate brush marks in the foreground and the serene mountaintop in the background, dissolve together in a seamless and harmonious visual dialogue. To learn more about Chaco Terada's work, check out the interview she did with photo-eye.
Tom Chambers
For Tom Chambers, photomontage is a vehicle to combine the diverse ideas stemming from his imagination — a way to make them tangible.
To construct his photographs, Chambers usually sketches the concept he has for an image. Sometimes, he will also find an element and photograph it as a starting point. The rest of the magic happens in the digital post-production process.
His photomontage I can touch merges reality and dream, while speaking to the beauty of childhood and the wonder of sea life. It is magical realism at its best. You may learn more about his work here.
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All prices listed were current at the time this post was published.
For more information, and to purchase prints, please contact Gallery Director Anne Kelly or Gallery Assistant Patricia Martin, or you may also call us at 505-988-5152 x202