The quirky and fascinating animations of Angie Cass can be viewed on her Instagram. Images: Angie Cass Collage Instagram.
Do you think collage is a lowbrow art form best relegated to primary school art projects? Prepare to have this perception turned on its head by Towradgi artist Angie Cass.
She is the curator behind the exhibition Shapeshifters: A Retrospective of Australian Collage, currently showing at Wollongong Art Gallery. She will host three of four collage workshops open to the community this month, which could see works by members of the public displayed at Wollongong Art Gallery.
The exhibition and workshops seek to bust misconceptions about “a relatively unsung medium in Australia”.
“It’s not always noted how clever collage is. It takes wild imagination to make unique and beautiful collage artworks,” Angie says. “At the other end of the scale, anyone can make one; it’s so democratic.”
The series kicks off with the Botanical Beauties workshop (21 January). Designed for carers in our community, it will see participants construct a collage inspired by nature, blending images of plants, flowers and butterflies to create a final artwork.
People aged 15-24 are encouraged to attend the (22 January) Myths and Monsters workshop facilitated by Chip – a Ni-Vanuatu artist practising various disciplines including textiles, printing, collage and zines.
Then on 23 January Angie returns to facilitate the Contemporary Landscapes workshop. Held for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, the event will be Auslan-interpreted as participants are encouraged to explore space and time, combining mountains, buildings, animals, lakes, clouds and planets.
Angie’s final workshop, on 24 January, is designed for everyone. Abstract Collage teaches ripping and cutting in collage to construct an abstract work with a strong focal point. The workshop will allow participants to create their very own Frankenstein from magazine and vintage book images on an A3 scale.
“You’ll take away a poster-size collage made from ugly animal parts and weird human faces,” she says.
Eye-catching works created through these workshops could feature in the Collage in the Community exhibition that will hang in the Community Gallery in Wollongong Art Gallery from 31 January to 2 March.
With materials salvaged from books and high-quality magazines, Angie’s collages create new worlds and narratives between characters that might otherwise not have seen the light of day.
The exhibition and workshop series coincide with Angie’s 30th anniversary as a collagist.
Angie, who started her artistic career as a “very analogue” illustrator in the UK before switching to digital mediums, today uses collage to create short paper stop-motion digital animations, in an effort to elevate the status of collage in the Australian artistic psyche.
“The motivation for this show was to show how complex collage is as a medium. Long gone are the days when it was just an annexed methodology – now it’s a thing in its own right and is often used by major artists to convey important messages,” she says.
“Collage is a medium where disparate materials are juxtaposed to create new meaning. The word ‘collage’ comes from the verb ‘coller’, to ‘stick’, or to ‘glue’ in French … But collage is a lot more than simply cut and paste. As an art form, it requires the same use of colour, shape, form and compositional techniques used in all other art forms.
“As the artist, you have to be able to put these existing materials together to juxtapose well. If you manage it, suddenly you’re breathing new life into these elements. By placing items that, in any other context have no business being together – a vegetable riding in a carriage or a lamp alight in someone’s eye – you have the power to change the meaning entirely.”
The workshop series at Wollongong Art Gallery will soon banish any visions of thin A4 pieces of paper buckling under too much glue.
High-quality pre-cut materials will be laid out in a deliberate fashion to ensure participants can dive right in, and discover the joy of the medium quickly.
“It’s very ordered and not too overwhelming, and I provide materials for a spectrum of styles, from minimalist to maximalist. More materials will emerge as the class goes on for those who need more stimulation – some have a slower approach to the medium while others are so fast-moving, they need a constant stream of exciting images,” Angie says.
“They will all be the same high-quality materials I use in my own practice because I believe very firmly that when you give people quality materials to work with, they feel respected and enjoy the practice much more, and the results are invariably better.”
Angie says collage is the ideal medium for workshops designed for accessibility.
“You don’t start off worrying about the first marks you make on a white sheet of paper – you can dive in, construct, deconstruct and reconstruct an image; keep tweaking until you’re happy,” she says. “The fear dissolves quickly, and the feeling of achievement arrives very early on.”
Bookings are required for the Wollongong Art Gallery collage workshop series:
- 21 January – Botanical Beauties led by Angie Cass
- 22 January – Myths and Monsters facilitated by Chip
- 23 January – Contemporary Landscapes facilitated by Angie Cass (Auslan-interpreted)
- 24 January – Abstract Collage facilitated by Angie Cass.
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