Lexicon Love
Australian born and bred. I am a collage artist who works under the name Lexicon Love.
I simply love the idea of being able to renegotiate and manipulate the origins of an image through the medium of collage art. Ultimately, it’s the way in which collage art challenges traditional notions of aesthetics, which I find most appealing.
I am drawn to the surreal and unsettling and try to inject that into my work where possible, always seeking out the unexpected connections between humour and tragedy. At first glance, the elements of humour and tragedy don’t seem to go together, yet they are so absolutely inseparable. Their relationship is complicated and one cannot survive without the other. It is in combining the two that true magic begins.
I often combine food with portraits. On the surface, this absurd combination appears to reject any sense of reason (an extension of my own twisted sense of humour). However, obscuring the faces of my portraits with food is designed to not only challenge traditional notions of beauty, but also to provoke, tease and confuse the observer.
I don’t set out to control the outcome of any piece but rather I want the observer to empathise with the subject through subtle suggestion.
By concealing the faces, I remove any distraction and invite the observer to slow down and join the dots in order to seek out the hidden. I guess the real power of the final composition is what can’t be seen. At this point the observer holds all the power and the artist none!
Although my mental approach is analogue, my physical techniques are digital. In order to avoid digital excess, I employ a self-imposed ban on using any more than two, and on the rare occasion three, elements.
The most significant challenge for me is giving each artwork the slight imperfections of hand and the general look and feel of being made entirely from traditional analogue practises. To achieve this, I do not use any sophisticated software such as Photoshop or Illustrator. Instead, my tools of choice are simple and closely mimic analogue techniques. It’s like working with your hands in the traditional sense.
Remixing the old with the new to create new truths, I organise and reorganise until it ‘feels right’.