Randy Grskovic was an artist from Vancouver who released a set of geometric collages. More specifically, Grskovic released a set of geometric collages in which he would use pieces of photographs as his main feature. The photos used in his collages were from photographic canvases at second-hang stories and flea markets. The photos would then be cut into different geometric shapes and then pieced back together.

This is an entry for the artist, Randy Grskovic’s set of geometric collages called Distortions of the Past; Collaborations for the Future. The collages were made to share the artist’s perspective on how memories associated with photographs cannot always be relied to portray an accurate depiction of a memory. (Randy Grskovic, Distortions of the Past; Collaborations for the Future, 2013)

The motivation for Grskovic to cut these photographs came from his personal perspective regarding photographs. Grskovic relocated often during his childhood, and as a result, lost photographs over time. He was forced to rely on whatever pictures he had left to salvage his childhood memories. He soon realized that the memories he held from his childhood would change over time, even if he had a photograph of it. Because of this, Grskovic chose to use old photographs to represent his idea that photographs cannot retain memories and therefore cannot be relied on to provide an accurate depiction of a memory. In other words, by cutting the photographs, he was representing the alteration of memories associated with a photograph.

The old photographs used were only able to be taken because of the availability to have access to cameras and printmaking. Moreover, this affected the ranges in time for which Grskovic could portray in his artwork. However, at the time the geometric collage was released, there was already an abundance of resources people could use to save and share images. Because of this, Grskovic wanted to ensure his audience pondered the idea that although photographs can be salvaged, memories are always susceptible to distortion. Furthermore, the increasingly new amount of methods to save and share images, affected Grskovic’s motivation to create this collage and remind his readers of a time when photographs were not always readily available to remind people of memories.

Grskovic’s use of line evoked my curiosity towards his collage. Grkovic cut stunning images and pieced them back together, creating a separation at the edges to represent lines separating the pieces in the image. Additionally, Grskovic cut pieces of old photographs into a different geometric shape in each collage, adding another change to the original photograph. In my opinion, the most important element of design used in Grskovic’s collages was direction. In his collages, he would rearrange pieces of photographs in an oblique direction. The way in which Grskovic would always rearrange pieces of photographs in an oblique direction, makes me believe that he was trying to evoke the idea of movement and action. When I think back on my own memories of my childhood and compare them to photographs of those memories, it reminds me that my memory is far from accurate and cannot remember details as time goes by. Because of this, I have interpreted the oblique lines to represent distorted memories attached to photographs.