Chris Collins: Heap of Broken Images

Louis Stern Fine Arts is pleased to present a selection of sculpture and paper collage works by Chris Collins (b. 1980). In the language of cast metal and discarded magazines, these works contemplate the “heap of broken images” described in “The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot’s 1922 poem lamenting the fragmentation and decay of post-World War I society. Collins locates a similar malaise in the contemporary media landscape, in which consumers are inundated with an overwhelming sea of images and information stripped of context. The works on view refer to this deluge of scattered parts while envisioning new possibilities in their amalgamations.

Inspired by the cut-up technique popularized by postmodern author William S. Burroughs, these works tear apart and reassemble found images and objects to unearth novel perspectives in the familiar trappings of material culture. In his recent body of collage works, Collins rips, scatters, and reconstructs images from magazines, art catalogs, street posters, and old photographs. Fragments of landscapes and figures with no immediately obvious connection are seamed together in a process of free association that transcends conscious intention. A reinvented order arises from the chaotic eddy of scraps, forming improbable tableaux that align and misalign in unexpected directions.