Three Blue Stations for Departure

Mixed media, pastel on paper.

12x15x1"

My collage works take their cue from the compressed poetry of twentieth-century collage: found words, catalogue numbers, destinations, objects and fragments of private language.

Three repeated arches establish an austere central architecture inspired by words from Herman Hesse's coming-of-age novel, Siddhartha that guides the main character in his journey. I read this book in New York and saw myself in a parallel path, coming-of-age in New York in the late 90's after temporarily moving from Toronto for a job working for a TV company.

I was alone in the big city, with a passion for nostaglia and absorbing all the new sights, sounds and people.

This piece consists of assorted torn papers from my journal, from NBC where I worked at the time, film and urban fragments accumulate at its edges of a worn book cover, like evidence gathered around a half-remembered monument.