John Berry

John Berry came into our class to give a talk about his work. He started by telling us he always viewed the world differently to others, and did not find like minded people until he went to college to study art.

Once he finished school he did illustration jobs and a few jobs in graphic design. He also helped work on the animated film "The Snowman". Through out all these jobs collage seemed to keep being a reoccurring art form that kept cropping up in his work.  He also spent time in Istanbul teaching English and doing illustration jobs. He came back to the UK and did a collage mural for the Margaret Care Unit and another mural St. Mary Mill Library in Selkirk. He used old books that were going to be throw away, There were about 30,000 books  (  he is still using them today ).

He told us he is inspired by Picasso and Kurt Schwitters because of there collage works. He spoke about his connection with physical material, old used items, that most people would see as nothing. Things that gave him a feeling of nostalgia really intrigued him and his work, he described himself as a bit of a horder. 

He said something to us, that i really heard. He said things have been done before, and probably what you are creating has been. But not by you, not by your hands, they don't have your finger prints on them.  Lately i have been feeling really overwhelmed with everything and the thought of quitting  keeps popping up in my head, and this really comforted me. 

He showed us his processes and how he spends some days just cutting out heads and organising them for later use. I found him very inspiring and absolutely loved his work! 

Here are some of my favourite ones:

These were collaged onto wooden blocks and the ones below onto old book covers

I love the silliness of these in a way, i like the idea of playing with proportions and the roughness of them.