Robert Voigts
North Aurora, IL
Social Media
Instagram
How would you describe your work?
My work is mainly collage. I do a little painting. My collage work is made with random ephemera that I collect intentionally and unintentionally. I use catalogs, junk mail, packaging from the grocery store, magazines, old album covers, books from Goodwill stores, old drawings and photographs. My collection started in the 70s. I would say my work is based on my thought process. I love playing with ideas of chance, opposites, mundaneness, memory, wonder, contradiction, juxtaposition, geography, poems, letters, numbers, and punctuation. I focus on my own idiosyncratic thoughts and leave the feelings to come later as my audience responds. I value intuition highly.
What inspires you?
I am inspired by human love. I have a theory that for every object, human, animal or mineral on the earth there is a human being who loves it. I am inspired by poetry. I think it’s the closest thing to collage in the arts. I’m inspired by music, drama, and humor. I’m inspired by nature. I did landscape drawing for years. The landscapes of Illinois and Missouri have been very influential to me.
Can you speak about your process?
I make a cup of water and cup of juice on ice. You have to stay hydrated. I put on a podcast and start with intuition. I select a substrate and some starting pieces of paper, photography or packaging material. I don’t have a fixed idea in mind in the beginning. It’s fluid. Once I start I add, subtract, spin. I’m looking for a compositional direction. I do a lot of sitting and waiting. I keep going until I’m satisfied or it’s time for lunch or dinner. I wonder if the piece is done. Sometimes a title comes to me during this process, but most of the time the title come later as I see more things in it. When I do a series, I do have a vague visual motif in mind. Sometimes each piece in the series has similar imagery or an element that runs through out.
How did you become interested in art?
I have known I loved art since I was very little. I loved looking at books with poems and illustrations. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t drawing. I remember in first grade I was picked to stand on a table and pose for all the kids. I was bummed, because I wanted to draw. When I was 12 I had a very clear thought I could be an artist.
Do you have any favorite artists, movies, books, or quotes?
A random artist list: Joseph Cornell, Max Ernst, Kurt Schwitters, Richard Diebenkorn, Picasso, Robert Rauschenbrg, Rembrandt, Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Alice Neel, Lucien Freud, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, Vermeer, The Flemish masters, Barbara Kruger, Kehinde Wiley, Van Gogh, Matisse, Fairfield Porter, Marc Chagall.
A random movie list: Chinatown, 12 Angry Men, It’s a Wonderful Life, Back to the Future, Lord of the Flies, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Dr. Strangelove, Lost in Translation, The Apartment, Vertigo, To Kill a Mockingbird, No Country for Old Men, V for Vendetta, Trainspotting, Barry Lyndon, Mad Max: Fury Road.
A random book list: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Candide by Voltaire, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges, Animal Farm by George Orwell.
Quotes: “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Mark Twain, “Repulsion is the sentry that guards the gate to all that we most desire” Salvador Dali, “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don't.” Robert Benchley.
What advice do you have for younger artists? (optional)
Start, work hard and don’t stop.
