In his Dictionnaire du dadaïsme, 1916-1922, published in 1976, Georges Hugnet defined collage as “a creative process that consists of using scissors to cut out images or parts of images to assemble them using glue, guided by divination, the joy of the imaginary and the principle of disorientation, not to discount the element of chance that this process can involve, in order to create reality and enter the world of the fantastical by distorting the images’ original purposes and ordinary meanings.”
Katrien de Blauwer excels in this art of “seeing one image within one or several other images”. Her introspective work, in which the feminine form is omnipresent, is both intimate and universal. Her radical cut-outs from popular, or even stereotypical photographs from magazines are used to create a vast visual register that is both anonymous and enigmatic, all in the same grayscale shades, with a matte, powdery finish. The assembly reveals the images’ underlying content and creates a strong narrative message accentuated by the artist’s aggressive pencil lines on top of the composition.
This new series transports us into three distinct atmospheres, revealing primary colours’ emotional impact: red symbolizes danger and violence, whereas yellow evokes anxiety and hatred, the feeling of being shut in during self-isolation. The sensual blue sequence, on the other hand, is a source of calm.
