17561 (_When I am in magic sleep …_) 1932

John Elsas made this collage with paper on paper. I wonder, what do you dream of when you are in magic sleep? I love the paper fragments that Elsas uses to make this figure, like patchwork. Look at the mix-match colours and shapes making up their gown: floral and geometric, light and dark, soft and hard. The figure’s head is made from a simple paper cut, and the collage has been done with a very graphic sensibility, and what looks like the addition of an inscription in a very elegant hand. I imagine Elsas finding the bits and pieces in the studio and intuitively assembling them, trying things out. What if he had used a different kind of nose? What if there had been no arm raised? I think this collage is in conversation with other graphic approaches to art-making, from childrens art to folk art. They are all part of a visual language of expression and ideas. The practice of art-making reminds us of the possibilities of creativity in the everyday.