Creative collage making

Did you know ‘Anthropocene’ describes the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems? Come and join artist Mercedes Balle to explore this era in a fun and engaging creative workshop. Using nature photographs as a starting point, we will make drawings on tracing paper to bring humans into the story, playing around with ideas to create fun and unique collages.

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About Mercedes Balle

Mercedes’ art explores the connection and disconnection with the natural world. Inspired by the notion of the sublime, London’s urban landscape has become her area of research. As a former oil painter, Mercedes became conflicted with the materials she was using; thus making processes and environmental impact have become key parts of her art practice. Now she’s a mixed-media artist and a painter without paint.

She sees the construction materials as the most significant disconnection between nature and herself; therefore, she uses them to make art about nature; she transforms them into works which question the problems of our economy in relation to the environment. She uses these materials again and again, trying to squeeze their possibilities and save them from obsolescence repeatedly. Mercedes also uses natural-biodegradable materials ensuring that these works will never finish up in a landfill and will continue the circle of life.

Mercedes explores the passage of time and obsolescence of what was useful and no longer is; contrasting temporalities of living beings to the material world we have built around us.