DOWNTIME w/ Karl Russell Vickers

1) LOCATION?

Leeds, United Kingdom 🇬🇧

2) YEARS COLLAGING?

Dabbled between 2008 – 2011, been pretty serious since then.

3) WHAT DO YOU LOVE AND HATE ABOUT COLLAGE?

Love: The accessibility of it – the materiality is endless and so widely available to everyone. Books and magazines that have lived their lives and end up in mine. But not just books – any material that can be collected, organised/archived and then reinterpreted is what sets collage apart for me. I also use it as a process to make sculptural works that incorporate folding, stacking, cutting and other related gestures. Things I hate about collage: Papercuts, Not finding new source material, running out of glue, accidentally cutting/ripping a clipping.

Hate: That collage is still fairly overlooked as a medium in the artworld and there should be more celebration and recognition, rather than comparison to painting, sculpture, photography etc. It is however reassuring to see so many various collage communities around the world doing great things.

4) BIGGEST INFLUENCES?

The usual suspects like the Dadaists, Bauhaus etc, many, many modern and contemporary artists; some of the influences I have fed into my own work come from chair and furniture design, science fiction writing, cinema, and sports in the form of footie.

5) ANALOG VS DIGITAL?

Absolutely Analog. I’m grateful for the commercial work I’ve produced using digital techniques, but even those started as analog pieces. Mastering both and knowing how they can compliment each other is something worth exploring for artists on both sides.

6) HOW DO YOU SPEND YOUR DOWNTIME?

Anything practical really - Cooking levels me out and like most people I take a lot from Music, Walking, Cycling and Gaming.

7) THREE TIPS FOR SOMEONE STARTING OUT IN COLLAGE?

EQUIPMENT. Use whatever you have around of course, but the things that made a difference for me: a really good pair of scissors, a scalpel with endless blade supply, a big cutting mat, bright lighting and an easy way of documenting work. After 10+ years I finally have everything I need including a dreamy large format scanner/printer.

SHARING WORK. Don’t share everything you create (on social media), a super tip I took from someone quite early on. I have a comfortable amount of my work online and on my socials. When I have the chance to share new work IRL with someone close or for an exhibition, I prefer if they haven’t seen it online already.

A 2-part tip about OTHER ARTISTS. 1) I believe it is best not to cut up someone else’s work unless you have permission, whether it is the Mona Lisa or someone’s lovely photographs. 2) It took me a while to fall out of the trap of making collage work that looked like everyone else’s collage work – blame Instagram for that. Thereafter, I spent a lot of time thinking about my own practice and how collage fits into and bends around it and runs my life in a way. I decided to push it into other areas and prove to myself (and my peers) that it deserves to be included in the wider conversation.

8) UP AND COMING SHOWS OR PROJECTS WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT?

I always have a bunch of projects in progress: A collage book about chair design which I’m pushing to get published; An ongoing football series titled The Beautiful Game which I hope to continue during the Fifa World Cup in winter 2022; As well as more new sculptural works based on collage techniques and archiving practice coming soon.

See more 👀
Gram: @karl_russell_vickers
Web: karlrussellvickers.uk