“Less is not necessarily more.”
— Milton Glaser
A profusion of collage artwork has recently come to my attention that makes use of only two or three elements. When this type of minimalist approach is successful, the result can be quite arresting to the eye and mind. More often than not, it looks uninteresting or unfinished to me. It may come as no surprise that I am more of a maximalist, preferring to build a layering of ingredients that transcends the intrinsic quality of the found material. I suppose that I have been more influenced by Schwitters than Cornell. Although there is nothing inherently unappealing to me about “sparsity,” admiring those who employ the methodology with skill, I have found myself pulled toward “density’ for the past few years. Some artists may think that if one hasn’t achieved a solution with fewer than a dozen parts, the essence of the piece has escaped. I appreciate that viewpoint, and respect those who consistently meet the challenge of limitation. For me, the working surface calls out for more, until a balance of “visual polyphony” takes form, and the dynamic aspects of color, shape, composition, and symbolic communication have resolved themselves as a distinctive, unified whole.
Fallen Body
collage artifact by J A Dixon
7.5 x 10.5 inches
available for purchase