Abandon

Pasted paper and acrylic on bristol

2025

For years, I’ve created collages shaped by sets of creative restrictions. This particular series draws its material from Gustave Doré’s illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy. The sole rule in this particular series is simple: each piece must be built from a single image, every element sourced from one illustration, with titles taken directly or adapted from its original caption.

This constraint acts as a generative force, allowing Doré’s vision of the underworld, with its pervasive tone of dread and awe, to resonate through. I see these collages as echoes of a collective unease, refracted through that dark lens and reassembled, reflecting the tenor of our times