ryan dunn.

With high-impact collage, a clever marriage of improbability and style makes all the difference. 

The desired effect is, most often, an incongruous soup of delight, bewilderment, awe, agitation, alarm, and/or queasiness. 

British artist Ryan Dunn does just this, but he does something else as well. Much of his work plays as skilfully off the empty space as it does the space he fills. The effect is that of quietude, collages as enigmatic as the photographs in an old atlas, as a view out to sea on a foggy day. 

He’s also damn funny. The louder elements of his portfolio are an equally accomplished batch of dada-esque absurdities, exactly the sort of arrangements that enthrall whilst holding firmly to the realm of the weird. So viscerally playful are these disjointed pairings that it’s almost impossible not to feel the waistband tightening around your temples, the chameleon in your mouth, the dog’s nose between your legs. Shudder. 

Beyond this kind of excellent stuff, Dunn also dabbles in industrial design, creating works as devilishly ludicrous as the "Bench Chair" (in which "the individual is permitted to enjoy the functional benefits of a chair and the emotional or territorial benefits of a bench"), among various other "chair subversions". 

 I won't give away much more then that. 

More from Ryan Dunn on his website Inane Systems, here.

eugenia loli.

When you’re left feeling lonely, hodge-poly or glum,

Forget where you’re going! Merely twiddle your thumb.

See, there’s sites to be seen and thoughts to be caught,

Whither whether you’re ready or ready you’re not.

So jump to the Kracken or climb to the sea -

At least you’re never as mad as Eugenia Loli.

 

aurelien juner.

Aurelien Juner’s Surface series is a wickedly subversive take on the fashion glossy – mixed medium, 3D collage pieces, photographed to perfection, witty and provocative.

Maybe it’s the whole perfect/imperfect thing, maybe it’s just the joy of seeing a cheap cheeseburger so perfectly plunked on the corner of Vogue, but these really do it for me.  

For all the easy pleasure that fashion spreads afford, Juner is pleasingly adroit at articulating the more cerebral side of his work. As he puts it:

"Surface is a personal photographic réflexion on the function of fashion magazine as a medium of dissemination of "mass culture" images and its relation to reality - questioning the status of the fictional world and idealized created for the magazine, and its relationship to the real world where the image is built."

Visual punch with underlying social commentary. Yes please!  

This and other projects here. 

Found via It's Nice That

mark lazenby.

What I love about collage is that it is - in essence - nothing "new". Rooted firmly in the recycled, the reconstituted, the collage artist makes preexisting forms into something fresh. Collage is a medium which must first address what is at hand before proceeding. It adheres to the sort of bricolage technique a clever cook utilizes upon opening her hodgepodge cupboard. How to marry unlike items into seamless dishes that delight...! surprise...! tantalize...!

The idiosyncrasy of unexpected combinations is the cheap thrill of most collage, and a fine line separates those who do it well from those who do it wonderfully. Mark Lazenby does it wonderfully. I've long been a fan of his retro-suffused creations that reek of charm and cryptic, comical narrative. This enormously talented individual deserves a few moments of your attention. 

Knock about his website here.