I make what I feel like making. No plan, no fixed medium. I just follow whatever pulls me in the moment. I come from a background of jumping between media: graphic design, digital, drawing. I still love all of them, but the spark comes and goes. Lately, I've found myself on the floor with a stack of old magazines and a pair of scissors. Collage brought a fresh energy that I'd been missing. Collage came to me when I'd hit a wall. I saw an exhibition that moved me deeply, but I wasn't making anything myself. I was blocked, low, stuck. Picking up a magazine and cutting out images felt like breathing again after holding my breath too long. I need to keep moving between mediums and styles. Staying with one thing forever drains me. Paper collage brought me back, but it also reminded me why I loved the old media I'd left behind. They're still there, still in my heart, and now I mix them in when it feels right. I don't create to get somewhere. I create because if I don't, I don't feel like myself.

@bread_will

Process

I work at a big table in my living room, surrounded by stacks of magazines: some untouched, some already shredded. I keep a sheet of plexiglass underneath so I don't ruin the table with the craft knife. Around me: scissors, glue, acrylic markers, and a bowl where I toss the paper scraps. A few always miss and end up on the floor. If I feel inspired, I just sit down and start flipping. I don't begin with a finished collage in my head. I let the images guide me. When something catches my eye, I tear it out and set it aside. I keep searching and collecting. At some point, certain fragments start to belong together. I wait until the relationship between them feels right, then I start cutting. Hands, scissors, blade, whatever the paper asks for. Sometimes a piece comes together in a rush. Sometimes it sits there for days. I know it's done when nothing else needs to be added or taken away, or when I realize I'm overthinking and it's time to walk away. Occasionally I draw over the collage with acrylic markers, just to add another layer, another texture. The searching is the real work. More time goes into finding images than assembling them. But that's the part I enjoy: the slow accumulation, the moment when chaos starts to make sense.

Influences

The spark that pushed me into collage was an exhibition called "Lo Spazio Ri-composto" at Palazzo delle Paure in Lecco. It featured eight photographers who use collage and photomontage to break apart and rebuild space: Jiří Kolář, Maurizio Galimberti, Giovanni Ziliani, Licinio Sacconi, Giancarlo Maiocchi (Occhiomagico), Giulio Ceppi, Giulio Cerocchi, and Nicolò Quirico. What stayed with me was the idea that deconstructing an image isn't about destroying meaning. It's about recovering it in a more conscious way. Beyond that exhibition, my influences aren't really other artists. They're the magazines themselves. I'm drawn to the strange conversations that happen between images that were never meant to meet. That's what keeps me curious.

Challenges

When I'm blocked, I'm also low. The two things feed each other: no creative energy, no motivation, no making. It feels like holding my breath underwater. What pulls me out is other people's creativity. I feed off it. Going to exhibitions, seeing what others are making. It charges something in me. That's exactly what happened with "Lo Spazio Ri-composto". I walked in feeling dead creatively and walked out with the urge to cut and glue. Collage was the breath that broke the surface. Art takes up most of my life. I work as a graphic designer, so creativity is already my day job. But collage is different. It's what I do in the free moments, without deadlines, without clients. It's the space where I answer only to myself. I've always been someone who mixes media and reuses old work. Nothing is ever truly finished. A piece I called done months ago might become raw material for something new tomorrow, through a different medium. Everything I make is in flux. That restlessness used to feel like a weakness, like I couldn't commit. Now I see it as the thing that keeps my practice alive. I don't stay still, and neither does my work.

Reflection

I don't have a grand plan. I just want to keep making things. Collage, mixed media, whatever comes next. I'll follow it. I don't feel aligned with how society defines success today. No followers, no sales, no recognition needed. If I'm creating, I'm okay. If I stop, I stop being myself. It's that simple. But then why send my work out into the world at all? Because staying in the dark is hard, especially when you truly love something. I can't be the only one who feels these things. Maybe someone out there will see my collages (a lot of them are political) and feel what I felt at that exhibition in Lecco. Inspired. Less alone. That's the point, isn't it? Keeping a cycle of hope running, not just for artists but for everyone. There's creativity in all of us; it just shows up differently. Reminding each other that there's more inside us than careers, family, or whatever society tells us has value. I'm a social animal too. I need human connection. This is how I reach out.