Joe Christian

My art is made from numerous picture fragments, used in such a way that their original context is not easily recognized. What may look like a simple photograph is actually a composite of dozens which I have carefully matched and cunningly pieced together.

From the day I saw great potential in the pages of National Geographic magazines, I’ve been cutting and rearranging picture fragments to create collages. (I have since diversified my source materials, of course.)

I use dozens of 3-ring binders, each filled with plastic leaf-pages to organize my picture fragments. On the spines of these binders I have written various categories for what kinds of subjects they contain (such as Landscapes; Plants & Agriculture; Water, Sky, Space & Fire; Architecture; Politics & Religion; Building Materials; Portraits, Fabrics & Misc…). You get the idea.

What I do is file all my new picture fragments into their appropriate pages of these binders. From these I can fabricate just about any object I can imagine. Not bad, eh? For instance in my Building Materials binder I have seperate pages for finished wood, weathered wood, rotten wood, bricks, musical instrument parts, book parts, parchment, rough stone, polished stone, petrified wood, gems, glass, gold, silver, steel, etc. etc. You get the idea (I know, super-organized but still, a pretty good system for finding the exact subject, texture, or color I want).

I would like to think my recent work is approaching a photorealistic quality and I strive for this goal with every new piece. I hope you enjoy the viewing experience as much as I have enjoyed creating my art.

My work is also featured on deviantArt.