How Covid-19 Made Me Start A New Collage Project Dedicated To Famous And Less Known People

I’ve dealt with digital collages before, but then lost sight of the subject for a few years. But with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the related cancelation of all outside activities related to my watercolor painting, such as workshops and festivals, it was time for me to deal with something else again. In any case, I had planned a creative break from painting, after which I would go back to watercolor painting with a fresh wind in my sails. A few weeks earlier, I had already experimented with small collages in Photoshop, but did not take it too serious due to lack of time. Ultimately, a quote from Marie Curie, which I heard on the radio, was decisive for dealing with the collages more intensely. On the one hand, it very well suited the new situation that the virus brought about us, on the other hand, I was interested in the biography of Marie Curie, whose name I knew, but actually knew nothing more about her. So the first one of the collages was created on March 20th, 2020 and it was so much fun that I decided to make a whole series of collages. Since then, a new collage has been created almost every day and I have dealt with the biography of another personality relatively intensively every day. The selection of the people presented here does not follow a scheme. Some of these people came to mind immediately and seemed worth taking care of for a day.

I came across other people by chance on the Internet because I “got stuck” on her face while searching for pictures on the Internet or because I read an interesting article about them. The basic requirement for every one of them, however, was that there is public domain picture material for the respective personality – usually these are people who have died a long time ago. For this project I mainly used the internet as a source of images and information. In addition to Wikipedia, the Library of Congress and the Digital Collection of the New York Public Collection were particularly helpful to me. However, image search is often very tedious and takes a lot of time. In my night shift, I mostly researched for material, biographical information and quotes and then worked on the design of the respective collage on my computer at home during the day. I usually came up with an image and layout idea while doing my research. In addition to the photo material collected in this way, the collages use a lot of other things, for example scans of old magazines, old papers, postcards, foils, painted backgrounds, photos of structures and various textures, etc. It is important to me to give my unique touch to my collages and to create an individual look from all the different materials used. Apparently I managed this quite well, because the response to the publications on various social media platforms was extremely positive and prompted me to design a book from the works created in the past few weeks. It is also important to me to get a paper version of the digitally created works.

I have gotten to know a lot of personalities in the past few weeks, and even if only virtually, it was a nice balance to the current considerable contact restrictions in real life.

The book is available here: https://www.wieland-fineart.com/shop/books/please-do-not-bend-collage-carsten-wieland-vol-1/

More info: wieland-fineart.com