Spacing Out is a Subliminal Gift

Uncovering our subconscious thoughts probably sounds like a slightly intimidating yet fascinating idea. That’s why Uruguayan collagist Laura Botto reflects on this otherworldly concept through her work. This Montevideo-based artist explores real life by adding a dash of surrealism to everyday moments.

Laura’s collage journey began a couple of years ago as she constructed vision boards for specific ideals she sought in life. She then started creating collages by showcasing life in an atypical manner.

She studied photography/plastic and visual arts at the Instituto Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes of Uruguay. “Even though I studied photography, I noticed the potential collage and photomontage have,” she says.

Collage allows artists to mix different materials and textures to create worlds often resulting in surrealistic images blended together from otherwise mundane objects. This technique as we know it today traces back to around 1910, thanks to Cubist painters Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso who glued patches of other materials to canvas of paintings or drawings.1

 Collage making can range drastically based on the artist’s choice of materials. These may include items like photos, paint, mosaics, wood, and more 2D and 3D constructions. Famous collage works include: “Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?” by John McHale and Richard Hamilton (1956), “Blue Nude II” by Henri Matisse (1952), and Pablo Picasso’s “Still life with the caned chair” (1912).

 For Laura, her creation process begins by jotting down ideas throughout the day, including ones from dreams. She works with images as if they were pieces of a puzzle, mounts what she envisions, then lets the collage sit for at least a day before considering finalizing it.

 She explains, “I love collages that have a few elements and some words or phrases. But I also love the surrealist ones where an image intervenes and creates a completely different reality. For a long time, I felt like I had to choose either one of the two styles, but I gave up on this idea. I do what I feel, whenever I feel it. Whichever the artistic medium we develop may be, we always leave our own footprint in the artwork.”

Laura has found a way to tap into her subliminal thoughts of daily moments to create surrealist images. Through inviting imagery, Laura’s vision and voice entice you to step outside your own reality to reconsider perspective when it comes to life moments.

“Collage allows the opening up of conscious, which is very direct…its also a way of looking at what you are consuming all the time” – John Stezaker, British contemporary conceptual collage artist.2

In Laura’s world, imagery ranges from a cute retro girl watering a field of dry land from the sky, a woman staring at you behind a green leafy curtain with the words “Know how to see” underneath, to two lovebirds sitting peacefully on a wire in outer space. They also include collages of people looking at the viewer alongside suggestive phrases to evoke rational yet subconscious thought.

Collectively, these collages show us that even those seemingly basic moments can hold weight in making our lives what they are as a whole. It is through these subconscious metaphors that we can gain perspective of how valuable our interactions can be in the grand scheme of universal things.

 “My collage “La mudanza (The move)” has an air of nostalgia and sadness of leaving the familiar for something new, and I made it during a moment that I was going through that [experience]. It’s almost unconscious,” says Laura.

These collages challenge our thoughts by making life a little dreamlike when we have to process it, including difficult moments. They welcome a conversation with our own mind that perhaps we never considered before.

Check out the gallery below and to view Laura’s prints click here.

* Interview translated from Spanish. All photos courtesy of the artist.

Today’s poetry pairing inspired by Laura’s celestial visions:

This Lunar Beauty

BY W.H. AUDEN

This lunar beauty
Has no history
Is complete and early,
If beauty later
Bear any feature
It had a lover
And is another.

This like a dream
Keeps other time
And daytime is
The loss of this,
For time is inches
And the heart's changes
Where ghost has haunted
Lost and wanted.

But this was never
A ghost's endeavor
Nor finished this,
Was ghost at ease,
And till it pass
Love shall not near
The sweetness here
Nor sorrow take
His endless look.

Social Truth Will Set You Free

They say experiences have the power to shape our lives. Yet many times, it’s not simply the experience or what we may witness, but the people involved who become an essential part of the memories we carry with us.

For Maryland-based artist Melvin Nesbitt, sharing stories from his actual experiences through his work are at the core of his artistic evolution. Nesbitt’s more recent work since 2017 is in the form of a more personal theme in the form of elaborate collages resembling paintings. These portray recollections of growing up as a young boy in the Tobias Hartwell Courts projects in Spartanburg, South Carolina, which he refers to as “Tobe.”

Social influence is a strong platform for art expression, and the environments in which we grow up can surely influence our worldview. In Nesbitt’s work you’ll find scenes of a reality highlighting the vibrancy of life through daily moments and the joys of being a child growing up there while soaking it all in – the sights, the sounds, the people, the quirks, the community feel.

“There are so many great stories to tell about [Tobe] and some tragic ones as well…when you consider the setting (America, the South, government housing), social commentary is unavoidable.  I've only scratched the surface so far,” he says. 

Nesbitt’s newer technique now has a focus on exploring what works best for his current visions, evolving his craft from oil paintings to collage making. “This is also when I started using wood panels as surfaces because it allowed me to do a lot of layers, rip stuff up, etc., just a much more durable surface,” Nesbitt explains. In his work, the usage of shapely imagery is beautifully connected through the pops of color to truly catch the artwork’s story in one glance, which keeps you looking closely at every detail. There is a softness and harshness in the texture that evoke the feeling he’s trying to capture in each piece.

These pieces exude of curious feelings frozen in time, yet ones that remain present today showing the ongoing struggle for many families of color who face social/economical difficulties and injustice. The artist explains, “Our government's lack of empathy towards impoverished children both infuriates and inspires me to try to tell the stories I remember of Tobe.”  

Nesbitt’s artwork causes the viewer to ponder about environment and how regardless of where we may come from, we can always make our own future based on our own choices and internal growth. The past will always be there as a reminder of the lessons learned and the steps we’ve taken to get where we are. “I'm more confident that I can address important issues in my art with the honesty and integrity the people involved deserve,” he says.

These pieces represent the beauty found in the genuineness of life, one that isn’t a bit pretentious and makes the best out of each present moment.

 All images courtesy of Melvin Nesbitt. View more of his work here!

 Today’s poetry pairing is inspired by the realness of Melvin’s work:

I, Too

BY LANGSTON HUGHES

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then.

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

The Beauty of Needful Things

Figure 1. Cindy Amaya working her craft in the studio.

For Cindy Amaya, being an artist is embracing the relationship between humans and our environmental surroundings. As a recent graduate from Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, TN, Cindy is exploring her creativity by presenting the viewer a glimpse of handpicked organic surroundings with an optimistic viewpoint through her work.

“I’m constantly inspired by the world around me. [It] comes from having a childlike mindset when I'm out in nature. I begin to explore different textures and patterns that can be added to my work. I’m inspired by fun color schemes I see in nature and also by kids,” says Cindy.

In her paintings, Cindy’s use of blank space almost removes nature from its surroundings and puts us face to face with it through very detailed realism and aesthetic techniques of how organic elements compose the overall part of nature she wants us to appreciate, be it whole or abstract. The use of broad strokes intermixed with complimentary shades and lines bring forth an abstract portrayal of nature to some of her work, yet they resemble the wildness and fragility of living things through delicate lines.

Figure 2. Cindy Amaya “Green Your Work #2” (2018).

Nature serves as an artistic element. Using these surroundings as a canvas for her current inspiration provides beauty and perception to living things most of us at times take for granted.

She explains, “Nature is good for us. A fact that is often times under-appreciated. Just looking at it and the color green, has this sort of calming effect. When we allow ourselves to me intimate and spend more time looking around, we begin to notice patterns that we didn’t know were there before.”

Appreciation of living things is not an understatement in Cindy’s technique, as nature gives life to the whole ecosystem, including aiding in our existence and that of animals. Through Cindy’s perception we can take a closer look in the safe space these living things provide just by their colors, shapes, and as living, breathing organisms alone. Interlacing this understanding with our surroundings only makes our experience and perception richer of why they matter.

All photos courtesy of Cindy Amaya. To view more of her work, visit her site.

Figure 3. Cindy Amaya "What a Time to be a Leaf" (2018).

Figure 4. Cindy Amaya "Double Chin" (2018).

Figure 5. Cindy Amaya "Rub a Dub Dub" (2018).

A poetry pairing to Cindy’s artwork:

Turtle Came to See Me
BY MARGARITA ENGLE

The first story I ever write
is a bright crayon picture
of a dancing tree, the branches
tossed by island wind.

I draw myself standing beside the tree,
with a colorful parrot soaring above me,
and a magical turtle clasped in my hand,
and two yellow wings fluttering
on the proud shoulders of my ruffled
Cuban rumba dancer's
fancy dress.

In my California kindergarten class,
the teacher scolds me: REAL TREES
DON'T LOOK LIKE THAT.

It's the moment
when I first
begin to learn
that teachers
can be wrong.

They have never seen
the dancing plants
of Cuba.