Name: Luke Tarpey
Born / Based in: Born in Bishop Stortford, UK. Grew up in Colchester, Essex, UK and now living in Castle Donington, Midlands, UK
Making art since:
I can remember, I had a big break from making work from 2009 – 2020 but lockdown gave me the time and inspiration I needed and collage gave me a way back in to making work again which I’m extremely grateful for.
What’s one thing you’d like people to know about you that doesn’t show up in your work?
The buildings were originally inspired by lockdown, everyone was talking about being stuck at home and I was in need of a creative outlet, I run a gallery for a living and one of the most recent shows I’d curated was collage focused and was incredibly inspiring so I thought why not give it a go. I started playing around with cutting up images, something clicked when I found some interesting photographs of buildings and I came up with the idea of making a lockdown house, the work has moved way beyond this now so I don’t tend to mention it as much when talking about it with people.
Which three tools, materials, or rituals are essential to your practice?
Collage is such a fantastic medium for play and experimenting and is incredibly accessible, I’m sure you get this answer a lot but all you need is some paper, scissors and glue. I would urge everyone to give it a go. We all start out playing with paints, pencils, glue, crayons and anything we can get our hands on as children and we tend to lose that sense of play as we get older.
What makes a work unmistakably yours?
Very strange black and white buildings.
Can you walk us through your process—from idea to finished piece?
Once I have found an interesting base photograph where I feel one of my buildings would comfortably sit, my process starts with play…. offering up different shapes and parts of photographs of buildings until I find a starting point where I feel a structure has begun to appear. These structures are as much portraits as they are buildings so giving them a personality is vitally important – naturally friends, family and daily life play a huge role in helping to shape the anthropomorphic elements in my work. The building takes shape slowly over a period of weeks or months with each change in the composition bringing new challenges in terms of balance, light, shade, tone, meaning and personality. I never really set out with an end goal in sight and let the structure evolve naturally, which helps give each piece its own unique feel. Only adding different pieces to push the building towards something with a bit more personality towards the end of the process. It’s tricky to get started, often frustrating trying to balance all of the different parts as you go and very to hard to push it towards something more anthropomorphic towards the end but I find the challenge exciting and the end result is always a surprise.
What’s something that’s been influencing your work lately—an image, sound, idea, or feeling?
I’d definitely say the aesthetics of my buildings are forever evolving, i want them to sit in-between the real and the imagined and for the viewer to question is this real or not so i’ve been pushing them into something more strongly resembling a building you could feasibly find in real life. I’m finding if I get this bit right I can then tweak them so they feel more out of place on closer inspection. It has it’s risks because I often have people comment that they thought it was a photograph of a real building and just walk past it without looking more closely but when people get that they are hand made collages the reaction I get is generally fantastic.
What’s the latest project you’ve been working on, and what excites you about it?
Very sadly I recently lost my mum, I’m in the very early stages of grieving her loss, which is impossible to put into words or even feelings at the moment. Art and music are two things that are helping. I’ve just finished a collage titled ’The Grand Protector’ – it’s the first piece I’ve made since her passing and while it’s not exactly a portrait of her, I hope it conveys some of her incredible strength.
Can you recommend us 3 artists that you’re enjoying lately?
Ryan Everson, JFK Turner and Lola Dupre.
What’s your personal definition of collage?
An assembly of different forms.
Learn more about Luke’s work on his website or Instagram
