COLLAGE ART: GEE VAUCHER’S CLASSIC TOUCH

The artist Gee Vaucher, who lives and works in a rural setting in England, began making collages in the mid-1970s. Her crisp, photo-based compositions feature clever and gently subversive combinations and juxtapositions of images. She works in a range of materials and genres, doing “whatever it takes,” as she says, to convey her thoughts as an artist and observer. Photos of “Family” and “Face-off” courtesy of the artist

WHEN A LITTLE SUBVERSION SAYS IT ALL…

Gee Vaucher is an artist who prefers to let her art speak for itself and also convey whatever messages she might have to share with the world. Generous with the photos of her collage works that she shared with brutjournal, she was, nonetheless, succinct in her responses to some interview questions we posed.

That’s fine, for, after all, as the American painter Joan Mitchell used to famously say, once you put the “blah, blah, blah” on a work of art or an artist’s broader oeuvre— too much obfuscating critical mumbo jumbo, that is — a subject can easily get lost in waves of misunderstanding or overwhelmed by the weight of self-serving, impenetrable, heady jargon.

Gee Vaucher, “Domestic Violence,” 1979, mixed media, made for the newspaper International Anthem 2. Photo courtesy of the artist

Such an approach would disrespect the kind of crisp, elegant, neatly presented images Vaucher produces using photographic material culled from various sources and brought together in juxtapositions that often pack a political or social-critical punch. Ouch. But the targets of her satire often seem to be deserving ones.

About the effectiveness of her own creations, the artist, who lives and works in a rural setting in England, noted, “They speak for themselves or they don’t communicate.”

(The artist’s website can be found here. It offers a variety of her prints, books, and other works for sale.)

Gee Vaucher, image from the “Face-off” series, which started circa 2012, mixed media. Photo courtesy of the artist

Vaucher studied art at the South East Essex School of Art in London. She told us, “I started making collages in 1976 as a shortcut to meeting deadlines for commercial work in New York. Otherwise, I painted.” Vaucher’s art-making encompasses a range of media and genres, including drawing, filmmaking, installation works, artist’s books, sculpture, and photography.

Given the fascination so many artists seem to have for collage, we asked Vaucher if she had any thoughts about this art-making mode and genre’s enduring appeal.

She replied, “I don’t know. It’s possible that they can’t draw.”

Enjoy this portfolio of Vaucher’s collage images, which we are delighted to present.