Brighton based artist Joe Webb takes a low-fi approach to his work, painstakingly creating hand-made collages and reinventing imagery to convey his ideas, all without the aid of computers.
His collages explore ideas from the political to the surreal, with each work carrying a visual message to be deciphered by the viewer. Webb often displaces the central figure into an unusual setting, and in doing so holds a mirror up to conflicting cultures and experiences. In other works he removes the central characters completely, leaving an empty space which reveals alternative realities in the layers underneath.
Joe Webb’s limited edition prints adopt a similar approach, and incorporate exciting multimedia printing techniques including diamond dust and silver leaf.
‘I started making these simple hand-made collages as a sort of luddite reaction to working on computers for many years. I like the limitations of collage, using found imagery and a pair of scissors, there are no Photoshop options to resize, adjust colours or undo.
My collages work to a basic rule of sourcing just two or three image, I then present them as a reinvented single image to communicate a new message or idea’.
