Collage Alchemy
the Transformation of Paper
Collage Alchemy represents Nielsen Art’s first foray into paper collage. We’re excited about this exhibit featuring three Bay Area Collage Artists.
Katie McCann
Katie McCann is a prolific collage artist selling her work regularly on Etsy and showing locally in galleries and from her home studio. Her work features creatures of otherworldly proportions and portrait “heads” bursting with imagination and flights of fancy. Her creature series assembles anthropomorphic bugs and hybrid creatures reminiscent of Greek demigods and mythological beings. Women with birds feet or diaphanous wings pose self consciously while a feline creature might stand quietly in judgment In the world of collage, Katie’s work offers a fresh perspective and style. She is also the curating force behind the exhibit bringing Michael Tunk and Kate Mink together to create Collage Alchemy.
Kate Mink
Kate Mink’s work might only loosely be called collage, perhaps more suitably labeled mixed media work. In addition to paper work like photos and newsprint, Kate works with wax encaustics or weaves textiles or thread throughout her art. She might add notations or inscriptions, which serve to make the works more personal, more “artifactual” than a mere collage.
With layers of wax, old paper, photographs and found objects, Kate opens little portals into the past…perhaps the artist’s past or sometimes, perhaps, that of the viewer.
Michael Tunk
Michael Tunk might be considered the quintessential collage artist. Working with Exacto knife and plenty of ephemera, he forges new worlds from old paper. Michael’s work rounds out Collage Alchemy adding a decidedly male perspective to the mix. Like a young boy collects baseball cards or comics, Michael accumulates hundreds of whatever the subject requires. Dogs of every breed are assembled like a canine legion awaiting his order, while a collection of gems piles on his Exacto board until transformed into a lunar landscape for a moonwalker to encounter, or hundreds of big cats are transposed into warscapes for his popular “Big Cats of War” series. Michael collects collage artists as diligently as his paper subjects constantly reaching out to collaborate with other artists and building a community of collagists to exchange ideas and tiny paper cutouts.
Exhibit Runs from February 21st from 7-9
Reception for the Artists Saturday February 21st from 7-9