Arts

Javier Piñón: Collage Art

09/18/2011 8:00 pm
Nikolai Soudek
23 comments

Javier Piñón uses clippings from old magazines and books to create worlds that are both fantastic and familiar, epic yet incredibly intimate.

His elaborate, surprisingly cohesive collages retain the charm and allure of the faded Americana of which they are comprised, while at the same time imbuing it with new meaning and propelling its characters into the larger framework of both ancient and modern-day mythologies.

From an excellent interview with Working Class Magazine:

“I think it’s a little bit about tweaking our existence, exerting your free will on your surroundings to create a world you feel you can relate to. Because I walk out that door and can’t relate to half of what’s out there in day-to-day life and, for a lot of people, I think that’s part of what makes us all so crazy. We’re just looking for something we can connect to and relate to and call our own. And so few of us have it. But I think we all have the ability to make it. Put out into the world those things that you want and you will get them back.”

“It’s my nature to put things in their place. I like an ordered world. I like a structured world . . . it’s super, super, super satisfying to take this mess and to make something clean and beautiful out of it all. I don’t know what it is, but it’s literally a physical response. Maybe all artists have it, just making work that you look at it and feel satisfaction at what you’ve done, but I think for me it’s a little more pathological.”¹