ARTIST STATEMENT
My art practice is highly experimental and largely unpremeditated. I source imagery from a wide variety of modern and vintage publications as well as domestically-foraged ephemera such as food wrappers, discard books and instruction manuals. Though my collage compositions are primarily hand-cut and 2-dimensional, my growing interest in assemblage has necessitated regular dumpster dives and an expanded tool kit that includes cement, castoff toys and a host of other improvised dimensional components. With each wave of trial and error I find myself transported to a liminal space between chaos and transcendence, emerging from each exploration with fresh information. In this way, making collage feels like a continuous act of becoming. Recurrent themes in my work include identity crisis, the ills of society, the search for satori, and the insufferable cling of traumatic memory. Collage allows me to transform my lifelong obsession with the materiality of scraps into a feeling of stasis by marrying seemingly incongruent bits together.
ARTIST BIO
Celia Crane is an analog collage artist and writer based in Rochester, New York. In 2019 she went on hiatus from a decades-long marketing career to begin authoring her first novel. It was during this deliberate and intense period of seclusion that she turned to daily art-making as a method of self-care. The resulting body of work reflects the artist’s ongoing struggle to maintain equilibrium while living on the edge of society. Assembled primarily from popular magazines, found objects and ephemera, Celia’s collages have been published in Collage Lab’s book Art Doesn’t Have to Match your Sofa as well as in Hınç Magazine, a progressive journal dedicated to raising awareness of Art, Literature and Culture in Turkey. In celebration of World Collage Day 2020, Celia reappropriated an 8’ H x 8’ W garden shed to create Rochester’s first dedicated collage gallery. Vayo Collage Gallery hosted its inaugural exhibition, “Garden Within the Garden,” in June 2020. Celia is a member of Rochester Community Collage and the International Collage Guild, and recently took part in the Curating Collage workshop hosted by Kolaj Institute. Her collage titled, It’s Hard to See the Picture When You’re Inside the Frame, became a permanent part of the historic Kanyer Art Collection in summer 2020.