Female Artist Collages

For the past six years I have been working on a multifaceted series, Unknown Artist, critically examining representations of fictional visual artist characters in film and television. The works I have been creating investigate how the artist’s identity has been shaped by popular media and the stories we consume. 

I am currently working on a video that envisions a virtual artist studio where fictional female artist characters from decades of film and television converse as they paint, draw, sculpt, and photograph. To create the video, I painstakingly cut out each character from pre-existing scenes, often working frame by frame in a process that feels akin to drawing. As I turned layers on and off during this work, I began noticing intriguing patterns and line work emerge, which I started capturing through screen grabs.

These collages are composed of these screen captures, reflecting on the often invisible labor behind digital art production. It also draws attention to the remnants and traces left behind in my process of making this video—the digital equivalent of scraps on a studio floor. By exposing the lines and quirky shapes left behind when I remove figures and objects, the work foregrounds the digital workspace itself as a site of play, experimentation, and mark-making.

Each collage title is drawn from the names of the female artist characters.