Ira Lombardia
Ira Lombardia’s work treats collage as a way of unearthing and reordering fragments of ancestral knowledge, motherhood, and digital culture. Moving fluidly between digital and material worlds, she builds nonlinear narratives. Her compositions hold broken histories close, offering not resolution but a tender, insurgent way of seeing across screens, paper, and memory. Her work feels both urgent and expansive, positioning her as one of the leading artists redefining the possibilities of what collage can be today.
In the Words of the Artist
Collage, for me, is a form of visual archaeology—a way of unearthing and reordering meaning from the excess of images that surround us. Through layering, appropriation, and care, I create a temporal space where ancestral knowledge, motherhood, and digital culture coexist—transcending linear time and inviting transformation. It is both a method of resistance and a gesture of intimacy, where fragmented histories are held together in quiet, shared connection.
In 2012, feeling overwhelmed by the nonstop flood of images we were producing and consuming, I decided to go on a “visual strike”—a symbolic, 1,000-day break from sharing any images on my website. That intentional pause gave me the space to reflect on how I wanted to engage with images moving forward. Since then, I’ve committed to reusing existing imagery, seeing myself as a kind of visual ecologist. This approach reflects my belief in circularity and reuse—not just as an aesthetic choice but as a way to respond to the excess and overproduction of our post-industrial, image-saturated world.
Photography, by nature, captures fragments—small pieces of reality pulled out of context. Bringing those pieces together feels like mending something broken, trying to find meaning in the ruins. It’s a way to rebuild stories or question the ones we’ve inherited, reflecting how history, identity, and experience are often fractured. In my work, I lean into that fragmentation and the sense of simultaneity, drawing from art history, theory, and digital culture to blur the lines between high and low culture. I use collage to build nonlinear narratives that mirror the chaotic, layered flow of information today—more like digital archives or old reredos panels, where meaning comes through connection, not order.
My projects often begin with long periods of research—sometimes months, sometimes years—centered around a specific topic. As the material accumulates, it can feel overwhelming, full of contradictions, patterns, and unexpected connections. Collage becomes my way of navigating this complexity, a method for mapping out ideas and noting connections and nuances while holding space for ambiguity.
In my recent project, Geometry Lessons, for example, my personal experience of motherhood came into sharp tension with historical and artistic representations of it. Collage allowed me to confront that clash directly—to locate myself within other people’s images, to question what has been inherited, and to reshape those narratives through a more intimate, embodied lens. Collage, in this sense, is like trying to find myself within other people’s images; it’s a way of making space for my voice within dominant histories, reframing the archive to reflect lived experience.
I use both digital and material techniques because that mirrors how I move through the world—fluidly shifting between screens and physical space. I often jump from digital collage to paper and back, enjoying the interplay between the two. However, working with physical materials often feels more special—more immediate and grounded. In my recent series, Rings, the process was very physical. The scale—determined by the reach of my arm—created a bodily connection to the work. Handling the images shaped how they touched and oriented themselves, adding a tactile layer of intention.
There’s an intimacy in that process—images skimming, brushing, almost dancing together. I hope viewers can feel that closeness, like sitting in a circle, holding hands, or whispering secrets. The pieces invite a quiet, shared experience, a sense of connection that feels both personal and collective.
Collage is definitely a mode of resistance in my practice. The very act of cutting something into pieces and reassembling it is a form of subversion. This process disrupts the control over how meaning is constructed and invites alternative perspectives. In today’s world, where dominant narratives often shape our understanding of the world, collage is more necessary than ever as a tool to question and reframe those narratives.
About the Artist
Ira Lombardia is an artist, researcher and educator who works across a diverse range of media such as photography, video, graphic design and sculpture. With her work she questions discourses, dynamics and rhetorics that have been assumed in the realm of contemporary art, photography and philosophy. Her research based practice, focuses on the transformation of the postmodern paradigm in relation to the digital visual culture.
For Your Viewing Pleasure
What to watch, read, and experience, as curated by the Collé team.
BARBARA J. KIRKALDY is an artist based in Burlington, Ontario. Working primarily with found papers, textures, and fragments of the everyday, Kirkaldy’s compositions explore memory, transformation, and the quiet beauty of overlooked materials.
SCOTT GORDON PAPERMAN is an artist based in Ventura, California, working in collage, mixed media on paper, and assemblage. His practice draws heavily on found ephemera, creating layered compositions that explore memory, material, and transformation.
KINGSLEY IFILL works across photography, painting, printmaking, artist books, and sculpture, with a practice rooted in process and material exploration. His images are immediate and arresting, marked by compositional austerity and rich analogue textures. Ifill carries out every stage of production by hand, from developing film to printing and bookmaking, emphasizing the physicality of making.
CHRISTO (1935–2020) was a Bulgarian-born American artist known for his large-scale environmental installations, created in collaboration with his partner Jeanne-Claude. Their ambitious projects, such as The Gates in Central Park and the wrapping of the Reichstag in Berlin, transformed familiar landscapes into temporary works of art, inviting new ways of seeing public spaces.
REY AKDOGAN (b. 1974) is a German-born artist based in New York. Working primarily with found materials, light, and industrial objects, Akdogan explores the overlooked infrastructures of everyday life. Her practice engages with notions of concealment, transience, and material memory, often drawing from the aesthetics of backstage environments and display systems.
Out and About
What to watch, read, and experience, as curated by the Collé team.
▼ VISIT
Glimpses of the Now – Group Show
Opening May 28th at Four Corners London with a talk with South African artist Sam Nhlengethwa, the exhibition features works by seven artists from Africa and Latin America that highlight the role of collage-making in the Global South.
▼ ATTEND
Nick Larsen – Publication Release, Santa Fe, NM, May 3rd, 2025
The publication follows Larsen’s 2024 exhibition of the same name and brings together collages, text works, and a new essay that maps his time spent researching and photographing Rhyolite, Nevada – a ghost town and the site of a proposed but failed queer community in the 1980s.
▼ LISTEN
Warmth of the Sun by Levitation Room
This two-song 2018 7-inch feels like a shared memory — bleached-out, a little warped at the edges, somehow more real because of it. The songs drift between lazy-day psychedelia and garage pop optimism, delivered with a shrug that says: time is fake, but a good hook is forever.
