DOWNTIME w/ Danielle Cole

1) Location? Toronto, Canada but I’m taking a year off work, so soon to be San Francisco, LA, Rome etc. 🇨🇦

2) Years collaging? Years of mixed media, 5 years of full time collage work.

3) What do you love and hate about collage? I love gathering enough materials to create a body of work that has a narrative. It has become a goal for me to create large-scale collages from original materials. My plan is to create an allegorical land to explore settler colonialism in Canada, though collage on top of old school maps. Birds sit astride saddles on fish and ride carelessly through a land that is not theirs. The hate part would be trying to find images of saddles from original sources.

4) Biggest influences? Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Frieda Kahlo, Salvador Dali.

5) Analog Vs Digital? The magic for me is in finding and combining images by hand and having to guide my audience at my most recent show, Clipped Wings, to look closer so they could see the art was hand built. Digital artists have access to images from anywhere and they can resize them, crop them or change the colour. Where is the fun in that?

6) How do you spend your downtime? Reading, kickboxing, finding materials for my collages.

7) Three tips for someone starting out in collage?
1. Let the materials guide you, don’t set out to flip through a magazine looking for a picture of a wolf, or something specific. That is the path to madness.
2. Always take your bike basket with you because you never know when you will find books or magazines laid out on the street.
3. Glue sticks are for grade school kids. If you want to sell your art, develop strategies for gluing it with a serious adhesive so the work won’t pop off once it’s been sold.

8) Up and coming shows or projects we should know about? I just finished a show called Clipped Wings at Gravenfeather Gallery in Toronto. I have an upcoming collage workshop in Toronto through AKIN Collective. I have taken a year off work to travel and make art. Since mid October I've been travelling and looking for places to show and sell my art in Portland, San Francisco and LA.

Links:

Website: www.daniellecole.ca
Instagram: @girlsanddinosaurs
Tumblr: daniellecoleca.tumblr.com

Artworks (top to bottom)
'Discussing the Colonies' Handcut collage
'Key Party' Handcut collage
'Nuclear Family' Handcut collage
'Loan Officer' Handcut collage
'Old Boys Club' Handcut collage
'Unwanted Stepchild' Handcut collage