This British artist likes to transform found objects and vintage photographs. Julie Cockburn uses embroidery and collage to restore to old photographs the life they had lost over time. She finds the pictures—high school yearbook pictures, Hollywood headshots, landscapes—in garage sales and online, then methodically embellishes and tortures them with pieces of twine, strips of colorful fabric, cutting the photographs into kaleidoscopic patterns.
Trained as a sculptor, Cockburn approaches the photograph like a three-dimensional object. Her work is surrealist and follows its eccentric laws, underlined by the comical names she gives her pieces: Posh Eccentric, Teenage Angst and The Worrier. Cockburn shows viewers what can be created with the freedom afforded by combining techniques.
BOOK
Conversation
Julie Cockburn
Tycoon Books
2012
