untitled (recline) by Trissa Dodson, Collage Drawing 2015
I was moved to create at a very young age: cutting up my fashion magazines was the only outlet available at the time. It’s a language that I didn’t know was developing but is now the most expressive for me. Collage allows me the flexibility and variety that encompasses so much of my general disposition. On one hand, it’s aggressive and forceful as I’m slicing things apart with my scissors and knives. On the other hand, I have to be gentle while layering and arranging delicate papers. I like the immediacy of recontextualizing images found in magazines, books, and online, but I’m forced to be patient while finding the right pieces to fit together.
Honeycomb by Trissa Dodson, Collage 2013
I work very intuitively. There’s very little planning involved. Once I have images that I like cut out, it’s just a matter of arranging them until they’re right. When I have a good composition in place, I find the right figure-drawing to layer over it. I have a lot of random bodies drawn onto tracing paper, so again it’s a matter of finding the right pieces to the puzzle. A lot of the time it will take me days until I finally glue the pieces down and start drawing over them because one work will go through so many incarnations.
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Trissa Dodson is a 23 year old artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She earned her Bachelor of Art degrees in studio art and psychology from Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida. When she is not making art, she enjoys spending time with her family, eating at new restaurants, rearranging her apartment, and reveling in the presence of goofy animals. You can find more of her work at trissadodson.com or @trissadodson on Instagram.
Ladyblog will feature more of her work on May 13th.
ladyboxbooks.com 