The Forbidden Collages are a natural extension of the Forbidden Reproductions series—in which the problematic nature of contemporary appropriation is being called to a halt, questioning notions of originality and authorship in an era in which all images seem to exist. The artist envisions the image he wants to create, but instead of producing it, it is found in existing images. There is a luring ambiguity between the power of the final result and the forbidden character of the appropriation, but simultaneously, being the devil’s advocate saying ‘yes’ to this problematic and ubiquitous visual strategy.

Even more, the Forbidden Collages take on an artistic strategy to undermine the forbidden character of appropriation in an attempt to hide the original source or to make it it’s own. Since the invention of computer software to manipulate images, artists have seized the opportunity to use digital software in their artistic practice such as Paintbox or Photoshop. As a result, the artist can edit found photographic material on a computer, adding contrast, changing the lighting and the color, or even editing the image using computer glitches, filters or copying and pasting certain elements, cutting out backgrounds, and so on. As a result, instead of creating sketches as studies, today, the artist creates digital collages, using found imagery and reworking second-hand images into new artworks. As a result, one of the most common practices is the use of [digital] collage, brought together in a homogeneous picture by the act of painting. 

However, with the Forbidden Collages, these digital collage studies are not a strategy; they become the subject, revisiting the omnipresence of this process in the art world—not only in the artist’s studio but also in the artist’s mind. So it can not be a coincidence the first Forbidden Collage is titled The Dream (2022). It is to say; the digital collage strategy functions very similarly to dreams. Various impulses, and images we encounter in daily life are brought together in an often surrealist manner in order to create new analogies and associations for meaning—hence the revival of Surrealism with the arrival of digital collage. But as with dreams, these collages follow impulses beyond reason, beyond the viewer [and artist’s] understanding, and beyond what is visible.