Emily Porter is a collage artist who has exhibited in the United States and has a background in architecture. She has worked at elite galleries in Chelsea, New York City and Boston such as David Zwirner and Robert Klein Gallery as a gallery assistant. Emily describes her collage art containing vintage magazine clippings as contextualizing “contemporary discourse [which] deepen the conversation around the intersections of collage, architecture, and feminist critique”. She further explains her desire for the work to engage with “fragmentation and reconstruction of visual culture, reclaiming space both literally and metaphorically to challenge dominant narratives surrounding identity, power, and the female body”.
Based on controlled chaos, these carefully designed collages use retro imagery to convey notions of sexual expression and tension. The text conveys cryptic messages such as a connotation to Pink Floyd with “welcome to the machine”, blatant suggestions of a postmodern apocalypse, and references to confrontational proclamations such as “how dare you?” and “keys to the future”. These works are a result of Emily’s isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic as she revived a childhood fascination with collage, developed in order to display the work for a mature and professional artistic audience.
From a visual perspective, the collage works usually contain a sense of unity and offer a contrast between monochromatic black and white photographic magazine prints and colored ones. The variation between tones creates a schism towards illusory orchestration with complete surfaces and drastic change. In a social sense, the works offer a display of empowerment and expressive liberation, conveying a heightened sense of individuality. These revealing works on paper demonstrate a capacity towards vintage aesthetics deconstructed and reconstructed towards contemporary philosophical discourse surrounding ambiguous communication and ironic dichotomies.
Knowing What a Man Wants (pictured above) contains one of the most socially-constructed suggestive displays out of Emily’s entire portfolio. The piece depicts a woman covering her face as if to express a sense of snideness towards the subject of the male with further portrayals of a woman in a sexually provocative pose with pearls and the word ‘swords’ to the top right of the composition. The piece seems to suggest men are only or primarily interested in sex and violence. Emily’s collage may be seen as a direct criticism and mockery of contemporary ‘bro’ culture whether they be tech-bros, Bernie-bros, or bro-ligarchs. A social deconstruction of male structures, the piece offers reprieve to those searching for witty commentary.
Emily Porter spots new light on spatial and social structures regarding female empowerment and notions of personal, unrelenting, and uncensored expression. She reconstructs passages of visual storytelling by integrating the printed word with found and reclaimed imagery. The pieces could almost be described as assemblages rather than collages because of the vintage age and nature of the clippings, being salvaged as much as constructed. A gifted collage artist and visionary, Emily Porter takes us on a journey through her wild imagination and quick-witted social commentary on deconstructing and reconstructing notions of power, expression, and liberation.
