5 Midwest Collage Artists Making Magic with Paper

Peek into the studio of a collage artist, overflowing with colorful paper, and your first thought might be, "It's time to declutter." But each scrap and trimming, once cast off, has been carefully filed for a future project—a very important piece to a puzzle that has yet to be visualized.

Mixed-media collage is a complex artform that saw its first breath in the early 20th century with cubist artists Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. So these five artists are the latest in a long tradition of creating art from fragmented pieces. Each has a fresh take on collage, utilizing unique materials and life experiences in their creative processes.

Junonia Arts, Indianapolis

Shelley Hanmo is a collage and children's book illustrator and the artist behind Junonia Arts. Hanmo is a storyteller. Her whimsically styled pieces line the pages of books (like In the Quiet Beauty of the World by Laura Jaworski), bringing life to the words on the page. However, her roots are in music as an award-winning pianist. Shifting from primarily playing piano to creating mixed-media art, Hanmo noticed a lot of crossover, but also areas where collage was unique. In music, she says, there are certain rules "and a right way to play," whereas collage is a space for her own creation.

In Hanmo's collages, characters and figures are dynamic and expressive with playful qualities one would expect of children's book characters. Up close, you can see dozens of tiny textural details—a flick of a colored pencil here, a dash of magazine print there, the tiniest bit of blush on a little face. Check out her website for assembly videos to learn more about her process.

Follow: @junoniaarts

Judy Bowman, Detroit

Judy Bowman first knew she wanted to be an artist when she was caught trying to pocket crayons from her kindergarten classroom. She has since grown to be an internationally recognized mixed-media collage artist who has received numerous awards and accolades—no more attempted crayon heists. Her work is playfully rooted in scenes of love and joy within the Black community, offering narrative art that moves beyond institutional racism and harmful renderings of the Black experience.

Bowman's vibrant collages ripple with movement; you can practically see the brightly clad figures jump off the surface. This is due to her use of paper layering which casts shadows, creating a voluminous feel within her work. Bowman's art tells stories of jazz-filled nights, love, family and camaraderie. Read our interview with Judy and see more of her designs.

Follow: @judybowmanartist

Lucas Underwood, Iowa City, Iowa

Lucas Underwood is a photographer and mixed-media collage artist known for his (almost as large as life) collages. Assembled from maps, Underwood's work explores belonging, masculinity and how we are shaped by our environments.

Underwood's process is "grounded in the photographic." He begins with a photo that he's taken—a single moment that he dissects and reconstructs with collage, building in the context and detail that isn't always apparent in the original image. "The process of photography is so social," he says, "and then I get a great and healthy dose of meditative solitude while I execute the studio (collage) portion of the pieces."

Dan Gardiner, Madison, Wisconsin

When Dan Gardiner was 7, he drew portraits of waitresses on paper placemats at Costanza's Pizzeria. This portrait-making habit continued when Gardiner worked for the IRS—he would often make portraits of his coworkers—before he became a full-time artist who has affectionately been known as the Sports Art Guy.

Gardiner's paper-layering techniques create a palette knife-style effect, as though he has intentionally placed swatches of paint on the canvas to create his figures. The focal points of his work always have a soft-yet-dynamic quality to them, and the backgrounds tend to fade into abstraction. Sports aren't his sole focus, but athletic imagery creeps in, and some pieces pay homage to legends such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Follow: @danart75

Deborah Shapiro, Bath Township, Ohio

During the long recovery from a jaw surgery, Deborah Shapiro became a "dumping ground for magazines." And so she began making collages. Her art is uniquely inspired by her previous career as a videographer. Because of her experience with video, Shapiro thinks about how to distribute light within her collage, just as she would previously think about how to light a space prior to filming.

Shapiro hones in on everyday life in her work, exploring the beauty of ordinary objects and places. She also finds therapeutic value in creating art, often turning to collage in moments of grief as well as moments of celebration. Her collages have an almost dream-like quality—hazy, then sharp. From afar, they are photo-realistic, but as you get closer, you can see tiny silhouettes, like the frogs, jewels and scuba divers swimming among her crashing wave collages.

Follow: @deborahshapiroart