This is a Surrealist collage by the American artist Euginea Loli. Her work has appeared in editorial, on album and book covers and she sells it in the form of prints on her website. Here Eugenia’s intension was to create an illusion. She has bought different elements of the real world together and assembled them to create a fantasy world simply through cutting and sticking. The concept is simple but a certain level of precision and control is needed to create this convincing illusion. Eugenia has achieved this by precisely cutting the flowers and picture frames, then layering them so that the flowers look as though they are bursting out. She has also used colour in an interesting and effective way, using a black and white gallery setting in contrast to the lurid colours of the plants. This works to not only unite the piece but the monochrome room enhances the saturated colours of flowers to give the piece more other worldly, uplifting feel. I chose this piece because surrealist collage is something that I love and have played around with myself a few times. Eugenia Loli was the artist who got me interested in it, after I came across her work when completing a brief on Foundation. I think this piece is quite summative of the feel of her whole body of work. I just love the certain level of wit required to create an interesting surreal collage. I also love trying to wrap my head around them and the fact that their ambiguity makes them open to interpretation. Playing around with space and perspective is also something that really interests me and collage as a medium allows this to be done quick and effectively. I also love Loli’s use of 50s magazines to give her work a vintage feel. However, some might argue that this only makes her work appear outdated.
