Joan Seed

"After obtaining my Bachelor's in Fine Arts I went to work in Advertising.
While I had a very successful career selling dreams to consumers, I always felt the need for total creativity.
I grew up in a suburban family. From early childhood, I was constantly bombarded with American Pop Culture and c...

"After obtaining my Bachelor's in Fine Arts I went to work in Advertising.
While I had a very successful career selling dreams to consumers, I always felt the need for total creativity.
I grew up in a suburban family. From early childhood, I was constantly bombarded with American Pop Culture and consumerism.
My work essentially consists of retro-collage. I mostly use magazines from over 50 years ago to harvest my images. On a personal level, the recontextualization of images from that era helps me come to terms and set the record straight regarding the world my parents lived in and the truth behind it.
The countless hours I spent mastering Photoshop while I was in advertising explain why digital collage work is such a natural for me.

Generally, my work falls under these main themes:
Climate crisis as a result of over-consumption.
Kinks in the time/space continuum. A moment where the past collides with the present.
The ever growing rise of sex in mass media and social media which is well rooted in the 60s.
Death in western culture. From cradle to grave, we are little more than a sea of consumers, tax payers and statistics.

The resolution of my collages is 600 dpi because I like to show the dots from the original printed material. Glitches and distortions derived from the old printing press add textures to varying degrees. My aesthetics come from things that are deeply flawed.

Colour and composition are always carefully treated in my work, they help convey the tone.
In Fine Arts, my main medium was oil painting. I explored large abstract field paintings to build my pallette and I often notice how this transpires in my collage work."