3M cardboard box pulled from dumpster in Long Island City
3.5 x 5.5 in.
Ian McHale
Ian McHale is a Bushwick-based collage artist, zinemaker, and community-builder who works with sidewalk finds, torn poster surfaces, and especially cardboard. His daily collage practice treats urban detritus as both image and evidence, attentive to the symbols and logistics that move through New York and then vanish at the curb. He is also the founder and co-host of Collage Night, a free monthly gathering that frames collage as a low-barrier, joy-forward social practice.
In the Words of the Artist
Cardboard found on Knickerbocker Ave.
3.5 x 5.5 in.
Starting in January 2025, I began a daily collage on a 3.5” x 5.5” page in a bound journal. Each day has its own page and each month its own journal. This daily collage started off as a challenge to myself and has evolved into a journey that has pushed my art form.
I collaged with the trash I collected each day. I cataloged where I found the trash, why it caught my eye, and the elements of the collage that were inspiring me. These daily collages became a personal journal documenting this past year.
Each day, I sat down and put all the trash I collected out in front of me. Sometimes I planned out the collage and other times I just let it flow out of me, pasting and layering as I went. Sometimes I loved what I was creating, and other times I didn’t. What mattered to me was just doing it. Sitting down and creating. It pushed me to fully accept and own that anything is collage, and by just cutting, ripping, and tearing and gluing things together, that is collage.
Some days I was so stoked to collage, and other days it was hard to stay on top of it, and days piled up. Throughout this journey, I learned to give myself grace and do what I can with the ebb and flow of my life, while also staying true to the commitment to my past self, current self, and future self.
No parking signs found in Boston
3.5 x 5.5 in.
This daily collage and the volume of collages I have made have helped me find elements of trash and collaging that bring me so much joy that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. I’ve always loved and found beauty and art in trash, but now I love it even more. I love being able to make something more with trash. At some point, this trash was useful to someone, and now it’s not, but I am able to use it in a way that is useful for me and the art I am creating.
Collage has been a way to view myself as an artist and change the way I view myself and the world. It’s one of the lowest barrier art forms. It taps into the playfulness and joy of being young and being able to cut things up and glue them together. It feels right and just flows out of me and has allowed me to tap into a part of me that supports me in feeling present, grounded, and happy.
Found on Evergreen Ave.
3.5 x 5.5 in.
Cardboard from sidewalk on Bushwick Ave.
3.5 x 5.5 in.
Collage Night is a free monthly event where community members can come together, connect, and create art by cutting, ripping, tearing, and gluing. I co-host collage night with Anna Marcus at multiple locations in Bushwick, and all materials are provided free of charge.
Since its start, Collage Night has grown from a small gathering in a small apartment to a multi-venue series that brings community members together through creativity, conversation, and connection. We have hosted over 50 Collage Nights with an estimated attendance of 2,000 artists and community members. Having Collage Night as a free event is so important to us because we believe that art should be accessible, art is for all, and we are all artists.
Collage Night is a space that allows us all to see that by creating anything, that is art, and by creating art, you are an artist. Whether an experienced artist or someone collaging for the first time, Collage Night is a low-barrier way to explore creativity and connect with others.
The initial idea of Collage Night came to me when finding so many magazines on the sidewalks, and I wanted to use them to create art with friends. I started by having friends over to my apartment, and then in April of 2023, I hosted the first Collage Night at Sunrise/Sunset. I continued to host Collage Night at Sunrise/Sunset for two years, and then in April of 2025, Anna joined as a co-host, and we expanded to three additional locations in Bushwick.
Wheat-pasted poster on Bushwick Ave.
3.5 x 5.5 in.
Cardboard box from Broadway on sidewalk in pile
3.5 x 5.5 in.
About the Artist
Ian is a hilarious and kind queer dude who loves collaging, photography, painting, and making zines. Ian firmly believes that art is for all and that we are all artists. Creating community brings Ian joy, and he likes to create spaces for creativity, kindness, giggles, connection, and joy. Ian is the founder and co-host of Collage Night, a free monthly event, hosted in Bushwick for the last two and a half years!
Ian has been collaging for the last 5 years, and in the past year, he has created a daily collage and now has 12 months with 365 collages. Ian draws his inspiration from construction Post no Bills walls with layers of posters, paint, and graffiti ripped, torn, wrinkled, and out in the elements. Ian collages with found objects and trash on sidewalks and streets. In the last several months, Ian has found cardboard to be one of the main elements in all of his collages. Ian really likes how ubiquitous cardboard is throughout the city. It is essential for the movement of goods and materials, but once it is used, it is left on the curb for pick up and forgotten. Ian enjoys the intentionality of the design, messaging, and symbols on the cardboard.
When he's not in the ocean or on the ice, Ian works as the Director of Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution for the New York City Health Department. Ian is passionate about supporting people who use drugs and aims to reduce stigma and provide accessible and low-barrier access to naloxone and harm reduction supplies to New Yorkers.
For Your Viewing Pleasure
What to watch, read, and experience, as curated by the Collé team.
Over the course of his six-decade career, ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG embraced pop culture, technical experimentation, and material eclecticism. Today, he’s perhaps best known for his radical, three-dimensional “Combines”—which he composed from discarded materials and mundane objects such as sheet metal, newspaper, tires, and umbrellas—and for his colorful silkscreen paintings on which he screen-printed, then painted over, collaged photographs sourced from books and magazines.
TODD HIDO (b. Ohio, 1968) wanders endlessly, taking lengthy road trips in search of imagery that connects with his own memories. Through his unique landscape process and signature color palette, Hido alludes to the quiet and mysterious side of suburban America—where uniform communities provide for a stable façade—implying the instability that often lies behind the walls.
JOHN CAGE (1912-1992) was a revolutionary American composer and music theorist, but also a significant visual artist known for his experimental approach to painting, printmaking (etching), photography, and writing, influenced by Zen Buddhism, chance operations, and artists like Marcel Duchamp, blending art and life through non-standard materials and processes to challenge traditional definitions of music and art.
TYRELL WINSTON (b. 1985 in Orange County, CA) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Winston's two and three dimensional works are the result of years of collecting, organizing, and reconfiguring discarded, dirty (either physically or socially), and forgotten objects.
STEVEN RUDIN is a visual artist, teacher, and retired psychiatrist based in New York City. His elaborate collages highlight the dynamic architecture of memory. Building on his background in art, psychotherapy, and linguistics, Rudin’s creative practice explores collage as a window into the way we process our experiences in parts and layers.
Out and About
What to watch, read, and experience, as curated by the Collé team.
▼ READ
I Was Maurizio Cattelan
Massimiliano Gioni on an experiment in artistic miscommunication. This essay was written to accompany the publication of Maurizio Cattelan: Beware of Yourself, a collection of writings by Maurizio Cattelan, edited by Roberta Tenconi and Vicente Todolí with Tatiana Palenzona, published by Pirelli HangarBicocca and Marsilio Arte.
▼ READ
Six Curators to Watch in 2026
Spanning blockbuster biennials and new Kunstverein appointments, these are the curators poised to shape the art world in the year ahead, via Frieze.
▼ LISTEN
Deep in View by Cola
This 2022 album turns post punk into a study of pressure and release, where taut guitars and restless drumming keep the songs in a state of elegant suspension. It is music that thinks as it moves, tightening its patterns until the emotion becomes almost architectural.
