Framed Check Collage Series (House of Rising Sun)
From Alexandra N Sherman:
"I discovered a cache of 1930's checks in an antique writing box. I was so taken with these bits of paper ephemera that I felt compelled to create a series of collages. I made use of the printed engraving, beautiful handwriting from a bygone era, and stamps that marked their passage through the banking system and many hands in my compositions. The collage materials are an assortment of vintage paper, decorative paper, and images from vintage art books and old nature guide illustrations.
My work explores mood, mutability, and transience of the shelf and the world in which we live through vignettes with ambiguous narratives. Creating this series has been a journey, one of delving into a new medium, exploring different ways of creating a story, a composition, working with text as mark-making rather than language, and setting many moods.
The sense of mystery and whimsy in these works is yet another way to invite the viewer to consider that which is transient, ephemeral, and fleeing. I delight in intensifying the sense of mystery that surrounds these pieces of ephemera with my collage. I also like re-using and repurposing in my work on an environmental level. There is pleasure to giving life to something as unwanted as an outdated nature guide.
I have transformed these checks into something else entirely through contemplation of each mark, crease, bruise, indention, and meticulously chosen additions. It is my hope that the viewer will experience a sense of mystery, whimsy, the past and the present simultaneously, and perhaps even a hint of magic."
