Original Collages
A selection of my favorite collages from the past few years, with a few close-ups to show detail.
Paper collages are between 4×2″ and 10×12″. Elements are from old magazines and secondhand photography books, cut with various craft knives and tiny scissors. Digital collages are all created in Photoshop using royalty-free images.
I’ve added short descriptions under each image; there’s usually a thought process or storyline behind each piece.
hand-cut 8 x 10"
Three dancers move through a forest clearing as a giant hand lowers a disco ball overhead. It’s either a ritual without an endgame or a show without an audience.
hand-cut 8 x 10"
A rose in heels on a roof. It is pretty. That is all.
hand-cut 10 x 8"
A surreal living room scene where giant butterflies drift in like houseguests from the cosmos. Domestic space meets deep space in a dreamlike interior.
hand-cut 10 x 8"
I particularly enjoy playing with depth and layers through overlapping elements.
hand-cut 8 x 10"
A skeleton kneels in prayer before a bunny-eared baby popping through a frame. The original art uses foamcore behind the baby's head to create a 3D effect where the head and ears actually pop out from the rest of the image.
hand-cut 8 x 10"
This collage started with the skeleton because they’re so satisfying to cut out, and ended up turning into something a little more odd.
hand-cut 6.25 x 8”
A blindfolded traveler walks into the unknown, unaware of lurking danger. It's my surreal take on the Tarot’s Fool, illustrating that person who’s caught between naivety and instinct.
I created his bandana from scratch using four red pieces of paper.
hand-cut 6.25 x 8”
A suited man summons his fantasy from a glowing computer, blurring the line between illusion, desire, and projection.
This particular take on The Magician leans slightly more cautionary than aspirational.
hand-cut 6.25 x 8”
My take on the Chariot tarot card: a man carries his children on his back through the desert landscape.
Taken literally, the dad is his kids’ chariot. More symbolically, this card’s themes include forward movement, trust, control, and balance.
hand-cut 6.25 x 8”
Two vintage dolls stand framed by a Lovers tarot card, holding hands against a bright seaside backdrop.
Upon closer inspection, some of their body parts are shuffled: swapped heads and a mismatched arm (the arm mainly because they couldn’t hold hands with the original hand’s angle). Boundaries of identity, gender, and romance are intentionally blurred here. Love is love.
hand-cut 10 x 12”
Hand-cut collage featuring a man's head floating above an empty red coat; tied like a balloon but slipping away from anything anchored in reality. It's a visual metaphor for an ego so inflated that it’s drifted from its grounded self. Confident on the surface yet completely untethered.
digital
Hot air balloons lift up and out of a gilded frame and blur the line between art and reality. I see this kind of image as a 2-dimensional way of breaking the 4th wall. It’s subtly interacting with the viewer.
This digital collage explores the illusion of boundaries and those moments in life when a quick and confident sidestep (like how the balloons break out of the frame) can bring about seemingly unlimited possibilities.
hand-cut 10 x 8”
A weathered man smokes a pipe on the moon, its plumes of smoke turning into a flock of seagulls. This hand-cut collage mixes the familiar with the surreal, combining routine coastal life with a bit of the unexpected.
hand-cut 8 x 10”
A giant hand from above reaches through a rocky desert arch to place a blooming cactus in its little cactus garden. Nearby, a small flock of sheep and three shepherds observe from the sand. There are witnesses.
digital
A single duck glides across a star-filled lake, slightly rippling the cosmos. This was created as a nod to that calm and grounded feeling of going it alone.
Figuring out the rhythm of a place and letting it carry you. I just love a good solo trip.
digital
See Solo Travel (I) above for description. Same deal. Stay tuned for a series of these.
digital
A woman reaches toward a skeletal hand emerging from a mirror, referencing the myth of Persephone. Set in a field of wild grass just starting to turn for fall, this digital collage looks at boundaries: life and death, choice and fate.
hand-cut 5 x 7"
Hand-cut collage showing a procession of nesting dolls descending a grand staircase, with a little guy in the back peeking out suspiciously.
digital
Vintage pin-up gals in swimsuits lounge in a surreal desert dreamscape where the sand and rocky dunes meet a rainbow-colored nebula in the sky. A disco ball hovers like a second moon.
hand-cut 5 x 5”
Floating TVs beam human eyes through space, visually connecting the observer and observed. Who’s looking at whom?
hand-cut 10 x 12”
A classical bust is fitted with a skull head, red hair, and gold necklace. It's my eye roll directed at vanity, decay, and all the dumb things people do when they try to outlast time. The candle's out.
hand-cut 5 x 7”
Two retro spacewomen stand under Nevada’s Extraterrestrial Highway sign, weapons raised. In front of them, giant bugs throw their hands up in surprise.
In my mind, this hand-cut collage plays with mistaken identity, mirrored suspicion, and how awkward things get when everyone thinks they’re the normal one.
digital
A butterfly appears onscreen, sitting on a rose petal on a nature show. A few real butterflies have gathered around and are clearly concerned. They think a friend is trapped in there and don’t realize it's just TV.
hand-cut 4 x 2"
After a long day studying moths that look like they have eyes on their wings, an entomologist dreams of one staring back. This minimalist piece captures that space between science and symbolism, pairing insect anatomy with human awareness and dream logic.
hand-cut 8 x 10
A modern climber ascends a towering skyscraper under the stars, unaware he’s caught the eye of a giant gorilla on a neighboring building.
He's watched with a mix of disbelief and territorial annoyance - this was supposed to be *gorilla’s* moment. This hand-cut collage speaks to ego, rivalry, and the absurdity of one-upmanship.
hand-cut 5 x 5"
A family gathers around a picture-perfect table, all eyes on the monstrous anglerfish being served. Behind them, an actual monster-sized octopus slowly approaches over the hills. They don’t notice yet... they will very soon.
digital
This digital collage is a visual take on the disparity between one's appearance and what a person actually carries with them. The nebula is the unseen inner universe that's shaped by memories, patterns, and instinct.
digital
A candy-colored carnival skyride drifts out of a vintage TV and into open space. This is another one of those moments where the image doesn’t stay put, it breaks out of its frame and blurs the line between scene and viewer.
It’s familiar, nostalgic, but something feels slightly off as it encroaches on the viewer's space.
hand-cut 10 x 8"
Hand-cut collage meant to capture that particular kind of heartbreak where you're left on the shore, watching your hopes drift off in colorful floaty things. Glamorous, untouchable, uninterested. Sometimes all you can do is sit with it. Eventually you get back up.
hand-cut 10 x 8"
This was the first skeleton I ever cut out. Learned a lot. Cutting the spaces between the ribs was an exercise in patience, steady hands, and remembering to breathe. Apparently I forget when I do detail work.