For 20 years now, Peter Clark has been elbows deep in collage art. His artwork is made of found papers which he transforms, relying on their colors, patterns, and textures, made by their printed, written or worn surfaces. Using a comprehensive collection of found papers as his palette, he “paints” his collages, the result being both playful and striking.
The creative process itself is relatively simple, if messy: arranging his found paper in order to achieve colors or scales, then tearing, cutting, and folding the pieces and gluing them down. “If it works… great, If not start again making changes till I’m ok with it,” said Clark in an interview with Zoneone Arts.
Amongst his materials are old maps, which he uses “for color reasons, for information or joke reasons”. “I use the linear qualities within them sometimes to ‘draw’ with,” explains Clark, “they are so versatile, can be very specific or used in an abstract way. I love them, they enable one to instantly play and change scale!”
But another, equally important ingredient in his work is humor. “I try to inflict what amuses me onto my work,” he says. “I prefer the pieces to have different levels, and allow shadows to play within them,” he adds. “Less boring and predictable that way, I don’t like things to be too worked out, I am not interested in that type of thinking.”
Here are some of his more unique creations:
