Kirsty McNay

Kirsty is a collage artist and makes collages using torn paper. The images she uses are her own photographs. Her photos are close-ups of natural objects she sees when she’s out and about; things that have lovely texture and colour. She prints the photos out and then use them to represent completely different objects in her collages. She tears the paper and combines small sections of different photos to create her pictures, layering the pieces one by one and gluing them down to build up the landscape. She often includes photographs of flowers which she uses in the foregrounds of many of her collages. She loves the process of seeing texture and colour all around, taking photographs and then creating a piece of art in which the photographs take on completely different meanings. She often frames without glass so that the layers of paper can be felt as well as seen. Her collages are imaginary landscapes rather than actual locations but they often remind people of specific places meaningful to them.