I've been thinking a lot about collage recently and wanted to share some of my favorite collage artists with folks.  At dinner the other night local artist Robert Larson came up, who does breathtakingly beautiful pieces utilizing paper ephemera he rescues from the street, namely old cigarette boxes, gum wrappers and matchbooks.  Last night I was lucky enough to stumble upon the closing reception for the Gee Vaucher show at Jack Hanley Gallery in San Francisco.  Gee Vaucher did all of the artwork for the seminal punk rock group CRASS, so I was familiar with some of the work from posters and record covers from years gone.  This in no way prepared me for the beauty of the originals- much of what I had though was collage all these years had turned out in fact to be highly detailed gouache paintings.  Gee was there herself, and turned out to be one of the sweetest most humble people, a true artist who makes beautiful and thought provoking images for all for the right reasons.  One cannot talk about punk rock collage art without also mentioning the name Winston Smith, whose work I viewed side by side Gee's on punk rock record covers in the 1980's.   His most famous work was the Dead Kennedies "In god we trust" cover, with the image of Jesus Christ crucified on a dollar bill.  Both Winstons and Gees work remind of of the motion graphics of San Francisco's own Ben Stokes, a video artist who is one half of the group Tino Corp. With jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto fame.  His work is like Winston Smith and Gee Vaucher had an animated collage baby- he recently did some videos for Davis local DJ Shadow.If you are at all interested in collage or protest art, all four of these artists come highly recommended.  Check them out, you will be happy that you did.

   

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