Photomontage: Eva Lake/ 1978 - 2013
Before I ever collaged, I collected old magazines and nostalgia.
In general I read them cover to cover, ads and all - eventually I cut them up to create my own stories.
My first collages were made in high school. I was looking at Interview, Richard Hamilton and Pop Art.
Plus like many teenage girls I also
devoured magazines aimed at beauty and fashion - Junior Miss, American Girl, Seventeen, Glamour
and Vogue.
It didn't really matter whether they were current or old - it was all good.
I didn't get really serious about collage until the punk era. By 1979 my collages were made for fanzines, especially the black and white pieces.
By that time I knew about Dada, having seen Dada and Surrealism Revisited at the Hayward Gallery in 1978.
My heroes then were John Heartfield, Hannah Hoch and Man Ray.
In the early 80s the work, like the music subculture of the time, took a turn towards New Romanticism. The works were used for window installations I created in San Francisco.
I was reading all the classics like Jane Austen and The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Shikibu.
Over the years I've made all kinds of work - painting, drawing, music, dance, performance - but photomontage was and is the most constant.
I've called it a Bedroom Art as often that was the only place I had to work in. I completely relate to the "Cut with a Kitchen Knife" idea.
You can make it out of a suitcase. I was never one to just slap things together though and sometimes images traveled around with me for decades before I used them.
Collage is the medium most about my own life and whatever concerned me at the time - love, labor, style, war, work, loneliness, respect, art.
Because it was so personal and often private, it could survive. And because it often was not shown, it became even more personal.
The work started out as messages to the masses but became more like a diary.
9/11 was oddly a time of regeneration for me. It came at a time when I was re-examining the state of my art affairs.
Suddenly not alone in paranoia, I returned to previous themes and works I had made years ago had a renewed meaning.
I studied art history at the U of O and it's often played out in my work. An example is The Judd Montages, some of which you see above.
An ongoing watershed moment are the Targets of famous and complex women in the movie and fashion trades, begun in 2008.
While working with famous beauty, I began collecting a more unknown type. I am calling these current works the Anonymous Women.
Self Portrait, 1978