Melissa Moffat, a Toronto-based collagist, uses comic book clippings to create abstract collages. Using classic characters, the artist deconstructs the characters’ costumes and familiar forms to construct something wholly new. Yet, in a sense, the resulting work offers insight into the visual nuance of these iconic heroes and villains.
With this source material, Moffat now navigates both gallery walls and comic conventions with her collages. “Ultimately, the goal of her work is to take existing images and reuse as well as re-appropriate them in a way that gives the viewer a cornucopia of archival pictures that are meant to be examined in a whole new way,” a statement says. “Moffat essentially breathes new life into magazine and comic editorials by removing them from the spine of the book and plastering them onto the wall.”
Hidden within these works are hundreds of renderings of the characters, whether it’s a Star Wars character or even the onomatopoeias that convey the sound of action in a story, like the beloved “BOOM,” Moffat’s collages may create new images, but they’re works that can only exist using this medium.
