Enslavement, immolation and an HIV diagnosis: the artists expressing harsh truths with collage

"Photography was a great tool for therapy, Gupta says, and collaging was very freeing, to get rid of those boundaries and put elements together. On his new Apple computer, he merged low-resolution photographs he'd taken of posters and graffiti in Berlin; a zoomed-in picture of a 1930s gay bar the Nazis closed down; self-portraits and scans from books. He explored queer relationships, migration and his concerns around Thatcher taking Britain into Europe."

"All of the messaging at the time, very similar to now, was about being a stranger in a strange land, says Gupta. I've been here since the 70s and I'm seventysomething but I still feel precarious. His resulting series, Trespass (1992-95), forms the anchor point of a new exhibition about collaging, I Still Dream of Lost Vocabularies, at Autograph gallery in London, which looks at how images can be deconstructed and reappropriated to give them new meaning."

"Popularised by artists in the early 20th century, collage got its name from the French term papiers colles to describe pasting paper cut-outs on to surfaces. But curator Bindi Vora wants to dispel the misconception that collage can simply be a cut-and-paste type of practice. She has included tapestries by American textile artist Qualeasha Wood, whose self-portraits reference Ozempic and digital overconsumption;"

Sunil Gupta used collage after an HIV diagnosis to process emotion, combining self-portraits with found images to suggest imprisonment and memory. His Trespass (1992–95) series merges low-resolution photographs, graffiti, archival images and scans to investigate queer relationships, migration and political anxieties about Britain and Europe. An exhibition titled I Still Dream of Lost Vocabularies at Autograph gallery presents over 90 works by 13 contemporary artists that deconstruct and reappropriate images to challenge photographic truth. The show includes tapestries and textile works addressing themes such as Ozempic, digital overconsumption, and diasporic experience.

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