Respected for her mastery of collage art, Toshiko Okanoue was also embraced as a photographer, included in 2003's The History of Japanese Photography. Active in the 1950's, Okanoue clipped photographs from magazines like Life and Vogue and meticulously arranged them to create surreal representations of the way she personally viewed Western life(style).
I just discovering her collages for the first time ever today - thanks to a feature in the June 2008 issue of Foam International Fine Art Photography magazine published quarterly in Amsterdam.
Often I find that color photo collage with both natural and artificial light sources just feels unorganized and noisy. Yet collage with black and white photography seems more cohesive and expressive of an overarching concept.
SPEAK OUT: Would you consider collage artists to be photographers or are they just appropriating the work of others?Labels: japanese photography, photo collage, surrealism, vintage photography
