Ashley Joseph Edwards
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47385468@N08/
Kent, United Kingdom

Describe your work in 10 words or less.

Imaginative/Crazy/Triangles/Abstraction/Distortion/The World Through my Eyes.

What do you like to work with (magazines, photographs, vintage)? Be specific!

Vintage Images, family sourced photos, black and white images, 1950's photographs in particular.

How long have you been creating collages and what made you start?

I've been seriously collaging for the past couple of years now. I discovered collage when I was in my first year at Kingston University when one of my friends introduced me to the work of Julien Pacaud, seeing his work was a true inspiration having never seen anything like it before. Around this time I had been given over 1000 images from my Grandads past, they were from the 1950's and 1960's, intrigued by the work of Julien I wanted to give collage a go, using my grandads photos, the combination of bold colours and shapes I discovered my own style of collage.

Are you solely an artist, or do you work in another profession?

By profession I'm a Graphic Designer, collage and Graphic design come hand in had, without what I've learnt from my graphics I wouldn't be able to create the collages that I do, considering that most of them are digitally made.

Do you have any formal art training?

Graphic Design.

Explain your favourite techniques.

All my projects start with a drawing of a concept that I've thought about (strangely most of my best ideas come from when I'm in the back seat of a car). After discovering what I want to create, I go about finding the images, im constantly saving/scanning/taking photos so I look through my files to see if I can find the specific images that Im looking for. In some cases I print out all the images and use a craft knife to assemble/balance the collage, but most of my collages are assembled on the computer, I like the clean cuts that you can achieve on the computer that aren't possible by hand, also the wide variations of colours that can be easily added.

Describe your favourite piece ever created.

My favorite piece is my most recent '//city//retreat//', It shows how when you live in the city you can only but wish to be in the fresh open air.

What other artists do you admire?

Julian pacaud, Mario Wagner

Thanks Ashley!