Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Travel Collages

I promised to show you the travel collages that I’ve been doing.  Seeing that I get pretty trigger happy when I travel, I just do not have the time to print and display the best photographs of 1200 plus frames after each and every trip.

Instead, I use my travel pictures as source material for various artworks.  It becomes an endless body of work – a huge, original source that I can tap into – and with every trip, that source just becomes more expansive as I now have about 10 years of travelling to 35 countries behind me so far. 

To commemorate a trip, I allow myself 1 layered collage on a blocked canvas of 20 x 25 cm.  Each collage has about four layers – I cover every finished layer with a layer of resin, and then collage again onto the resin once it has dried.  I continue in this way until I have 3-4 layers.  With each layer, the collage starts to have a clear 3D effect, with a distinctive background, middleground and foreground.

The materials that I use are all ephemera from the specific trip – business cards, boarding passes, images from local magazines, newspapers, brochures and photographs.  I include things that I would like to remember like names of shops, museums, restaurants, website addresses, colours, etc.  So the collage becomes a condensed visual notebook of the trip. It also takes a lot less space than albums filled with pictures.  So here are some of them – enjoy!


Travel Collage - Netherlands

Travel Collage - Prague

2 comments:

Emily Lagore said...

These are gorgeous Anel! I take so many photos while travelling - I have almost resigned myself to the fact that it is just too much to print out each trip. I use them as reference for my art - of course in that context sometimes I feel I don't take ENOUGH photos because the view I want for my art isn't in the collection of photos I took!

Anel Stricker-Bessinger said...

Hi Emily! Thanks for your encouragement! I know exactly how you feel about the travel pics - too many to display, but way too little to truly catch that same sense of awe and inspiration that you experienced while you were there! Love your postcard creations - they're absolutely divine.