Statement

Austin Wallace’s collage works exhibit a comprehensive stock of images and laborious precision in extracting them. Wallace creates narratives inhabited by illustrated subjects. In using fragments from numerous sources, he makes clear the image was not captured, but found and created bit by bit. Photographs are typically relegated to backgrounds, creating what feel like backdrops the characters play upon, rather than canvases they are adhered to. Stories largely take shape during the selection of cutouts for each piece. The orientation and scale of subjects dictate their interactions and placement. While meticulous, there is a looseness to the composition that serves narrative rather than aesthetic.

Wallace’s body of work has refused to be done in series. Discovery and chance are critical to the process. Pieces are unique and motivated by the cutouts that comprise them. Whether looking forward, criticizing the present, or dredging the past, the final works appear like fanciful daydreams or absurd recollections. Several themes recur: masculinity and boyhood, identity, wonder, machinery, nature, faith, and labor.

Austin Wallace’s visual inspirations include the collages of Lance Letscher, Erik Farseth, Aldwyth, and Phyllis Famiglietti; the photographs of Walter Wick and Mary Jo Hoffman; the paintings of Pablo Amaringo; and “splash pages” from 70s and 80s superhero comics.