Hollie Chastain is a paperphile artist and illustrator from Chattanooga, Tennessee who tells her stories by mixing various media together. She uses different materials and textures such as old photographs or ephemera paper and then stitches them together to create her intricate collages.
Chastain started these experiments in 2008 when she fell in love with vintage book covers, scribbles, stamps, water and ink marks.
“What I adore about collage as a medium is the complete versatility and the allowances that it gives first-time creators to play around with color and texture and composition without any ‘but I can’t draw’ and ‘I’m not an artist’ hang-ups,” the artist told Colossal.
The artist also wrote a book named “If You Can Cut, You Can Collage,” in which she explained and illustrated basic techniques and methods for anyone who wants to learn to collage. Just like the name of this book suggests, Chastain wanted to inspire and encourage people who feel like they can’t make art to try! Because we can all be creative and do it!
Check out her artwork in the photos below.
