Drawing with a Blade

How to find and express your unique drawing language in collage.  Drawing is one of the first experiences of artmaking that we have. It is defined as the formation of lines on a surface by using an instrument like pencils, chalk, charcoal, or pen and ink. Using the fundamentals of this practice, we will be translating each participant's drawing style into cut collage forms, exploring how we can ‘draw with a blade’. Together we will dive into developing our own collage language and explore how we can express ourselves in this medium.  Workshop participants are encouraged to bring any printed ephemera, magazines, newspapers, photographs, books, or printed images that they feel connected to and don’t mind cutting and collaging with. Making photocopies of particularly special pieces is advised. PBF will provide some magazines, glue, cardstock, x-acto blades, and scissors.

The audience for this class is adults and young adults, high school and up. 

This class has been generously sponsored by the Marion Park Lewis Foundation for the Arts and First Bank. 

About the Artist

Rochelle Voyles is a Brooklyn based multi-disciplinary visual artist originally from the Midwest (b. 1989). She received her BFA in Fine Arts/Printmaking from Pratt Institute.

Her work transforms textile patterns into abstracted landscapes and figures using collage and paint. She uses the language of cloth to re-envision reality, embracing pattern for its own sake, manipulating and distorting its shape and form into images that call to mind metaphysical space and the digital image.

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In her collage work, she uses analog techniques to decontextualize emotionally charged images of our world, its traumatic history, and its picturesque landscapes into her own abstracted visions. Through her work she attempts to re-frame how she perceives the scariest and most beautiful parts of being alive.

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She was a 2022 resident at the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony and a 2021 resident at the ChaNorth ChaShaMa Artist Residency. She has shown at galleries in New York such as Trestle Gallery, Peninsula Art Space, The Local Project, and Collarworks.