Collage art isn’t just about finding a pretty picture and arranging it on paper—it’s about creating an entire vision, and manipulating found material until a new image is born. For British collage artist, Maria Rivans, it’s about transporting the viewer into fantastical worlds of the imaginary.
Using fragments of vintage ephemera, often with reference to film and TV, Rivans creates a mash-up of Surrealism meets Pop-Art aesthetic. Describing the process as piecing together an unruly jigsaw puzzle, Rivans assembles the cut-out fragments and scraps, laboring over long periods and making alteration after alteration until the collage begins to take shape.
“I just tend to go for it, by working straight into a collage,” she further explained in an interview with For Arts Sake. “I use my iPad for noting down ideas and inspirations. Sometimes I come up with a theme or the ideas develop from the images that I collect. Mainly I just play around and have fun with the making process.”
Being a collage artist also means having an extensive collection of vintage ephemera, mainly antique books and retro magazines, which she finds in second-hand shops and at market stalls.
“I go to boot markets, charity shops, and often people will donate material to me,” says Rivans. “It’s an exciting process, when I come across something I can use I pretty much get it back to the studio and begin cutting and using the images in the latest collage I am building.”
Continuously fascinated with cultures of the past, Rivans often references different film and TV genres. From vintage Hollywood to 1970s sci-fi, B-movies, and TV trash, she reinvents existing films to her liking.
“I watched a lot of TV in the 70s as a kid,” she admits. She then added that shows like Planet of the Apes, The Time Tunnel, The Fantastic Journey, Land of the Giants, and Star Trek will keep popping up in her work.
The end result, both nostalgic and original, is worth taking note of. Scroll down to see some recent highlights from her Instagram page!
