Featured Artist: Jennifer Gordon

The Magic of Collage

By Jennifer Gordon
QuailBellMagazine.com

Strangest Sort of Friend

Beauty—the appreciation of it, the study of it, perhaps even the decay of it—has become a lifelong fascination for me. My goal in art is to explore time through nostalgia and memory to create something new out of something old.

There is a single line is Shakespeare’s "Julius Caesar" that had the most profound effect on me, while I was studying acting at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. Portia tries to connect with Brutus. Getting down on her knees, she says, “I charm you, by my once-commended beauty." In that instant of saying these words out loud, my heart became broken; my body shook….and I knew in some way that the rest of my life would be defined by those words.

“Once commended beauty."

I search for this in an old photograph, a faded letter, a building that has fallen into decay, the face of a beautiful man with sad eyes. 

These things are all connected to each other with an invisible ache, which attaches them to me as well.

I see their beauty. I see the memory in all of them, the all-encompassing wish to be recreated. I try in my work to capture that, whether it is in a collage incorporating vintage Victorian era photos or through photography of urban desolation and surreal portraiture.

I see time, and feel it pressing against my skin as I work. It’s 2013, and 1873 all at once, the edges of this reality fade, and I slip through, unseen, and hope with everything that I am, that I can find something there to lead me back.

Collage work is a combination of photo transfer, acrylic paints, watercolor, oil pastels, and a little bit of magic…

You Always Listen

Countess

See more of Jennifer's work here.