The Brooklyn Collage Collective (BCC) is back with its 3rd installment of the year. While they had an opening reception last week, they have a closing party tonight at 7:30pm with DJs, drinks, and food.
The gallery is located in deep Bushwick, at the Armature Art Space at 316 Weirfield Street (easily the prettiest street in Bushwick), in the basement level of the owner’s house. Since it’s free to show art there, the artists keep 100% of sales, which then makes the artists able to price what they want (read: cheaper.) This DIY-feel of the gallery matches the collective, which is a group of diverse, rogue artists of all ages living in and around Brooklyn.
The collective officially began last fall, with the mission to work together to raise their own personal profiles and bring attention to the medium of collage. One of the founding members, Katie Raffa, explained, “There is currently a collage renaissance happening, but it is underrepresented in the gallery setting. As group, we throw quarterly shows and work on aspects of professional development. We plan on, hopefully by the end of 2014, having a book, or printed aspect, of some sort.”
There are 15 different artists featured in this collection, and with styles and materials used ranging widely. So why collage?
“I started making collages after I graduated college, I was jobless AND on crutches. When you graduate school, you lose your studio space, your exhibition space, your tools, the rental equipment and the critiques from professors and classmates. I wasn’t prepared for how big of a shock it was to leave art school, your creative hub is pulled from under your feet,” said Raffa.
“Collage was an inexpensive way to express myself, in a precise manner. I was already making video collages because collage (in all senses of the term) allows you to use something and make it your own,” Raffa adds, “I believe collage is having a comeback because the internet has completely revolutionized the idea of copyright. We know everything is up on the internet to be shared and our art represents this contemporary ideology.”
If you’d like to get involved in the BCC, send them an e-mail: Brooklyn.Collage.Collective@gmail.com or check out the Facebook event tonight here.