Untitled 1957

This collage, by Emerson Woelffer, features torn fragments arranged like petals around a central scrap, all on a neutral ground. It makes me think of the artist in his studio playing with shapes, ripping and layering to find a new form. Look at the way the scraps are arranged – each tear and jagged edge feels deliberate, as if he's composing with negative space as much as with the material itself. I wonder what he was thinking as he made it? Maybe something about the poetics of collage, or how a simple line can suggest so much more than it depicts. It reminds me a bit of Kurt Schwitters, another artist who found beauty in the discarded. The pentagonal formation, reminiscent of a star or flower, draws you in, inviting contemplation. It's like Woelffer is saying: even in fragments, there's a whole story to be told. Artists do this for each other, building on what came before in the hope of seeing something new.