This week I have been working from a photomontage by Hannah Hoch, "The Coquette I." Hoch was a rather influential artist working in the German Dada group, but one of the few, if not the only, woman that received any attention at the time, and even that paled in comparison to her male counterparts. I am drawn to her work not for its critiques and discussions about society, although that is also captivating, but for its aesthetic qualities. The use of newspaper and black and white photographs limits the colors that she uses, and the objects/figures are roughly cut out shapes stuck into a new space. In the piece below, I was also particularly struck by the red oval behind the beetle; despite it's small size, it stands out amongst everything else.

Hannah Hoch - The Coquette I: (Die Kokette I) 1923-1925 photomontage, 18.5 x 20.5 cm


When using Hoch's image as a reference, I used the same general shapes and values as her cutouts for my starting point. I did not want it to look like her figures, but to simplify and find new forms and relationships from her composition. The watercolor below is a product of about 3 paintings before it, each using the previous painting as a reference. I intentionally do not adhere to exact shapes, as I enjoy watching objects morph into new forms on their own.

5 1/4 x 4 1/2 in (13.3 x 11.4 cm)

The next series of 3 came as a way for me to explore the scale and placement of the various objects in space. Everything was simplified so that I could play around with where things were placed in relation to other objects.


1 3/4 x 5 1/2 in (4.5 x 14.0 cm)


Although I have used this process many times before and made many series of paintings that explore placement and scale, this was the first time I have realized that a narrative is created. The different shapes become characters, and they move around from one scene to the next interacting with each other.