Joanne Hummel-Newell

Artist statement

Collecting printed and handwritten ephemera is an important part of my creative process and this often dictates the subject matter. I gather things, scraps, shopping lists, tickets I have found on the street,at a train station, pockets, all of a particular appearance—discoloured, loved, lost, stained, beautiful and damaged.
Pasted found notes or manuscripts are often employed because of my anthropological interest in mark-making. I’m fascinated by handwriting, telephone doodles and children’s scribbles. This ‘accidental art’ forms the basic rules of my compositions, ‘chance’, ’accident’ and ‘honesty’.

I strive to construct a symbolic representation of a metaphysical reasoning of the world and how we interact with such ephemeral material and information. Whilst removing conscious thought, the page and its white space becomes a drawing tool which allows me to explore the endless possibilities of composition within my ‘drawing collage’, a nod towards my interest in constructivism and the Russian Avante Garde.
These 'drawing collages' are best compared to the pages of a book, constructed from detailed marks and materials imploring a need to be held and viewed intimately. This approach is repeated in sculptural form, where small objects are obsessively wrapped using fragile material and are built to a scale not much larger than a book.