Title: Self Portrait // Artist: Kayla Starling
about the piece
| –Materials used: Scissors, glue, markers, vintage magazines, found objects (homemade cyanotype, torn rug) –Specific methods used: Layering large blocks of paper, figures, words and found objects –Meaning behind the work: My therapist asked me to make a self portrait, and this is the result. It’s about feeling lost, then found, and lost, and found, on and on. –Other info: I loved playing with color, contrast, and fun, blocky shapes in this piece. I also wanted to anchor this collage — although abstract — in my own reality, so I included a cyanotype I made in my friend’s front yard and a torn piece from a rug I found in my garage. At the time of making this piece I felt like I was at a mental rock bottom; in the process of creating it I realized, hey, at least it’s only up from here. |
about the author // Kayla Starling
| Kayla Starling (they/them) is a queer mixed-media artist from Central Florida whose abstract collage works explore grief, hope and existential thought. Combining surrealism and maximalism through 2D analog collage, they urge the viewer to grapple with their own despair — and challenge them to find a way through it. When Kayla is not making collages, they are perfecting their stained glass technique, studying the Spanish language, and working toward food justice in their local community of Tallahassee, Florida. They believe we will see a free, liberated Palestine in our lifetime. |
Instagram: @decaf.collage
Author Photo Credit: Van Lane
wildscape. literary journal 