Michael Joy Digital Collage

Chicago artist Michael Joy is usually working on 3D sculptures, however, recently he has been exploring his new interest in photo-collaging. Collaborating with fellow artist Bailin Pagadala, they bring together their combined skillset to create surreal and whimsical images. Sometimes funny and sometimes serious, each image tells its own individual story.

The process begins with Michael harvesting vintage photographs from the public domain. Any photograph that generates an internal reaction, no matter how small, is downloaded to his collection.  Once several hundred images are collected, Michael scrolls from picture to picture until something clicks. Joy says, “That click usually happens instantly. It is a micro moment, a visual whisper. It requires a quiet mind, an almost meditative state in which I simultaneously see segments of past dreams and reimagine them to unfold into a deeper story.”

Michael continues, “Perhaps, after so many years of manipulating found objects for my sculptures, I’ve become sensitive to taking subtle visual cues from various shapes blending them together with other forms. Sometimes, the connection is based on similar shape patterns and contours, and other times I am responding to an emotional reaction to a particular image and desire to amplify that feeling or create a new narrative.”

Together with Michael’s ideas and Balin’s technical grace with photo manipulation, they have created 150 new images over the previous six months. They are currently bringing these images together in a book that will be available in the summer of 2016.  Many of the images can be seen on his website http://michaeljoyart.com/discover/printedwork/collages/ with several prints available for sale.

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