KEYMAT Collage Studio Works

In August 2010, Keith Donovan and I collaborated on some three dozen collage pieces during a massive thunder and lightening storm that swept the French countryside some three hours south of Paris. We worked throughout the day and into the night, producing this series using a variety of tampons, collage, paint and chance.

Collaborative work is a fascinating and often difficult process.  During the production of these pieces, Keith related the collaborative story of artists Dieter Roth and Richard Hamilton in 1976. An exhibition of the works opened at Galeria Cadaqués.  Each picture was accompanied by a drawn or painted certificate as well as a small image of sausages – meant for the dogs.  Their efforts were dubbed the Rotham Certificates.


I've collaborated with a number of artists in the past including John Himmelfarb, a Chicago-based artist, and the visual poet, John Bennett, the director of Special Collections, Ohio State University. 

The process of handing over an image to another artist sharpens – or dissolves – the ego.  A little section of a piece one grows attached to is sent into the forge to be changed, printed over, obliterated or changed for the benefit of the whole. Sure, there were arguments.

The works, which were helped along by a hungry cat named Vermine, each roughly 25 x 17 cm in size, with a series of five works at 50 x 34 cm.  Pictured here, above are Hard and below, a view of the studio in Le Johet, France. Click on the images to enlarge.