Jan Stenmark (b. 1949), Stockholm, Sweden
Jan Stenmark first encountered collage via surrealism. This meeting and also the urge to withdraw from everyday life lured him into drawing and making collages. Ernst, de Chricio and Dali were early inspirations.  Since the late eighties he has been a professional artist and has published eleven books of his unique brand of humour.

When he searches for images for a specific idea, Jan encounters many unexpected combinations. The imagination gets help from the outside and “one creates things not possible from just indulging in one’s own fantasy. ...The fragment suits me well … I have never had an urge to tell the whole story. And when we look at a collage these different fragments also colour the image with its own source context”. While working with a specific collage, Jan sees other images and text fragments in the cornes of his eyes which in their turn make up the foundation for new collages. “No time is wasted”.

Jan’s collages are always combined with a quote, a phrase or a comment. His main source material is from books and magazines from the 40s to the 60s. Sometimes the original picture is unaltered and the “collage effect” is evoked by the collision between Jan’s text and the image. This is the very core of his work. The picture and the text can be funny in themselves but if they don’t hit it off together, the search goes on for the right pairing. They must “function” , as Jan puts it.
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