Although I have a background in painting, for the past three years I have worked almost exclusively with collage as my primary medium. My exploration of collage stemmed from a discovery that I could recycle old paintings into fresh material by cutting them up and placing their parts in a new context. Using material already loaded with meaning simultaneously points back to an unfulfilled past and serves as an optimistic symbol of regeneration. It also calls into question the nature of objects and how an object’s history plays out in its present function. While the source material for the collages started with remnants of my own work, I have begun to incorporate prints of paintings and sculptures culled from art history textbooks as well as studio scraps from other artists. I am especially drawn to imagery that has, what Benjamin calls “aura.” The resulting work embodies the turbulent process in which it was made, and straddles a line between harmony and dissonance.