Collage of Lino and drawing – Studio practice

In my studio space I have been collaging together postcards, Lino prints and pen / ink drawings on a large roll of cartridge paper.

I have been inspired by very paint-ily game backgrounds for the foliage, it feels essential for my aesthetic. (I am trying to figure out the legitimacy…)

With these Linos, I was playing with images of my own selfies as a source. An attempt to evoke a lush landscape with the joke being the figures only taking a picture of themselves. I want to re-make the hand plugging a socket one, because I really like the small gesture representing a bigger connection or reliance on technology, the internet or comfort.

Comfort.. So the other Lino is from a selfie of myself wrapped in a duvet, I loved the sort of upside down teardrop shape and the drapery reminded me of a sort of holy Mary. The size of the finished print is very emotive of trinkets you would find in old catholic shrines.

Here are more collage experiments, it keeps evolving. I’m sort of struggling with depicting a love of the abstract online life we can take for granted with old methods/styles. I like all the small gestures, little repetitive human actions that are so ordinary. Taking a photograph with a phone, feeling a boost of endorphins with each heart response, finding it easier and easier to live online.

It can be a complex relationship, being online with so many possibilities can be inspiring, we protect and pad ourselves out with acknowledgement to others, seeking affection from the anonymous users, self validating, there is a sense of such accessible immortality to the internet. But it giveth and taketh in turn, (ah ha), like society it is an organism that can punish brutally (take gamer gate and Justine Sacco in 2013) whatever it pleases.