Joy Hecht, an artist based in St. John’s Newfoundland, creates stunning collages that capture the spirit of a place.
Hecht’s intimate collages depict landscapes and cityscapes from New York City to Newfoundland to North America and Overseas. She sources her collage materials from magazine text, metallic candy wrappers, musical scores, coloured tissue paper, scraps of Kleenex, paper towels, watercolour on newspaper, and much more. Her collages are two dimensional yet display a strong sense of three-dimensional space. The old and new architecture of the city merge with urban textures and colours. Hecht captures the rhythm and choreography of people, bicycles, cars, and buses moving through the community. By including musical scores in her work, the viewer can imagine the sound that a city might make, and her work instantly becomes multi-sensorial. Keeping in mind the repetitive nature of a metropolis, Hecht pieces the figures and individuals into these spaces behind such distinct colours. Her work from Newfoundland with wide-open landscapes shows how natural environments can fluctuate between freeing or restrictive depending on your preference. By placing paper with text as the bricks of the building, Hecht gives a new signified meaning to the symbols of the text rather than their original context. With these thoughtful decisions, the viewer sees the love and care that Hecht has for these places in each of her compositions.
Hecht’s intention with her work is to capture the spirit of a place. Whether you have visited the places that she captures or haven’t, through bright colour and perspective, the collage comes to life upon viewing, and we are transported to the position that Hecht works.
Comentarios