Daniel Voelker treats the art of collage making as a sort of language, in which different pieces of paper are laid on top of each other to convey one coherent story. But if collage art is indeed a language, Voelker engages with it in wholly original ways.
Interested in the manipulation of tone, line, and shape, his collage process oscillates between quick improvisational moves and carefully planned revisions. Inspired by graffiti and urban decay, he also experiments with his source material, using tools such as charcoal and printmaking, instead of found paper cut out of books and magazines.
“I developed a process to fix the charcoal to paper to ensure its reliability as a medium for collage,” explained Voelker in a piece published on Artsy Shark. “The drawings are cut and arranged, layer after layer until a finished work emerges.”
As such, his collages have a distinct, rather somber, quality to them. According to him, his work involves an improvisational process of placing the cut pieces, then arranging and rearranging them until a new image is formed. “I rarely have a preconceived idea of what to make,” he says. “Rather, I let the pieces show me how they want to be arranged.”
Below you’ll find some of his more striking pieces.
