Maria Rivans’ collage art stems from a love of vintage ephemera. Having collected over the years an impressive collection of antique books and retro magazines, she cuts out fragments and scraps which form the basis of her work. The work itself, she admits, is not unlike piecing together an unruly jigsaw puzzle.
As such, it requires much time and patience, assembling the pieces together until a collage begins to take shape. With attention to beauty and to the harmony of composition, her works allow for an optimistic understanding of a world in which different shapes and forms come together as one.
Intertwining different film and TV genres, from vintage Hollywood to 1970s sci-fi, B-movies, and TV trash, Rivans’ work is in a constant dialogue with cultures of the past, reinventing existing film plots and narratives while spinning bizarre and dreamlike tales. The result is a sort of hybrid between Surrealism and Pop-Art—a reflection of Rivans’ sources of inspiration and natural inclination to the quirky and the unusual.
Her creations range in sizes, from large-scale originals to smaller, limited edition prints. Each is the product of months of careful deliberations and decisions—all aimed at creating that delicate balance of composition.
