Making objects of beauty from the things we throw away
This week we welcome Joe Healy, an artist recently featured in Epicenter’s exhibition Cut Creators: Collage for Contemporary Times. It’s hard to imagine that his work is made of materials salvaged from discarded consumer waste. The pieces resemble tribal imagery with an optically explosive quality bordering on psychedelia.
All of Healy’s images are made with 80% upcycled paper from packaging. He creates the patterns, traces on paper, and glues them to a stretched canvas covered with black construction paper. As the last step, he brushes a clear matte finish over the entire piece.
“I am a self taught artist. Most of the materials I use in my art come from the remaining packaging of products I consume. It is not just because I want to recycle or up-cycle, but because I have a great interest in packaging,” he said. “As a child I would examine & take apart boxes to see how they are constructed. Now I realize a design process went into creating these packages.”
Healy has a series called The Cereal Box, which is named for the flat cereal box that the technicolor-like shapes are glued to.
“Likewise, I draw from the countless minds and hands that created the urban landscape of NYC, the place of my birth. In these things I see patterns, textures & contrast. They are artworks in themselves that I want to capture and reform – the soul of the city. My work represents the multitude of the ethnic cultures that have by no surprise formed the person who I am & the art that I create,” Healy wrote.
See more of Healy’s work on his Instagram.
