The Painterly and Poetic Collages of Andrea Burgay
You could call Andrea Burgay a collage artist. She does use paper as her primary material. But I think of Andrea as a painter. I can’t not look at her beautifully textured pieces and find in them a painter’s sensibility, an eye for subtle colour shifts and tactile surfaces. For me, she has more in common with the messy curiosity of abstract expressionism than traditional straight-laced collage.
I discovered her work on Instagram a few years back and was immediately drawn to her series on old book covers that she calls Fictions. In this series, Andrea uses old paperbacks - usually not iconic titles - and works into their covers, breaking them down by some mysterious process. Her pieces look as if they’ve been chewed up, spat out, and reassembled in a beautiful new configuration. They’re warped and mangled, as if they were in a state of decay. And yet, they’re also delicate, with sensitive little details that I find myself zooming into on my phone.
In my own art, I’m interested in using paper, texture and a soft colour palette, so I feel I have a lot in common with Andrea. Which is partly why I was so eager to ask the NYC-based artist about her own process.
Hey Andrea. Can you tell me how you make your beautiful collages - it looks like you peel bits off book covers and then rework them back into the surface?
The works in my Fictions series are made through a process of deconstructing and reconstructing cast-off paperback books. I begin either by tearing the cover image of a book apart or collaging on top of it in colours and textures of a similar palette. Layers build up, which can be removed as dense chunks and rearranged.
I embrace chance formations—random associations between the lines, shapes, or textures of fragments feed into the work and reflect the forces of nature and chance. These actions are repeated over and over again, creating a cycle that both takes time and mirrors the effects of the passage of time—weathering, destruction, and regrowth.
So your surface stays attached to the book?
The final piece is the entire book, sealed with medium so that it becomes a solid object. I think of these works as ‘Image-Objects’ because they’re focused on an image in a painterly way, but they’re also objects with a physicality that reminds us of how we relate to these specific items—what it feels like to hold a book.
I love the sense of things breaking down. It looks like some bizarre natural forces have affected the surface. Are you trying to create a kind of decay, and what’s your interest there?
I’m interested in creating objects that appear to have been weathered or corroded, as if they were left to decay in a basement or attic—dried out and brittle, or swollen and warped by moisture. Some have forms that explode and spill out into space. Others are composed and enclosed, keeping their secrets behind the surface. I imagine that these objects have undergone a metamorphosis and taken on new lives as their neglected and ignored stories blend and mix.
This sense of decay in my work is tied to my desire to highlight life’s cycles—creation, destruction, deterioration, and rebirth. I believe we lose sight of this nature of life when we focus solely on the shiny and new. We also lack a cultural framework for confronting the natural aspects of life that we often try to avoid, such as trauma, loss, aging, and death. By embracing and illustrating these cycles, I hope to reveal the possibilities that renewal, and rebirth offer. My works convey a sense of what might be revealed when we acknowledge what time, trauma, and loss leave behind, offering a glimpse into what can emerge from transformation.
I also love the tiny details in your work. It feels like you censor or mask some parts of the material in order to lend more drama to these smaller fragments.
In the process of making each piece, there’s inevitably a stage where a sense of chaos emerges—a version filled with frenzied marks and lines weaving across the surface.
I love this kind of energy, but I find that pulling back by removing or covering some of these elements highlights those that are most essential, creating a heightened sense of drama. By masking certain areas, the remaining fragments aren’t competing for attention but are given space to convey their own significance.
I’m sure you’ve amassed a crazy collection of old books and materials. What are you generally on the lookout for? What makes a great cover to work on?
Lately, I’ve been collecting books mostly when I travel, since used bookstores and thrift shops with books that I’m looking for are scarce here in NYC. I’m drawn to books that are not “canonized” and widely read today, especially from genres like action/adventure, science fiction, romance, and drama. I like books that are already somewhat destroyed, with a creased cover or a worn area. I’m also drawn to books with visual texture in the illustration that would work in combination with the physical texture created by my processes, which is always an interesting effect. Titles also attract me and I frequently reuse these to title my works.
What ultimately determines whether I work with a specific book, though, is the age and quality of the paper. Certain papers, especially those that are thinner and more brittle, are easier to layer and remove. For this reason, my selection process usually needs to be in person. I’m also fortunate to have friends who have picked up on what I look for and keep me generously supplied with books and paper materials.
For a lot of people books are sacred. Has anyone ever freaked out that you’re destroying old books, and how do you justify it?
Thrift stores and used bookstores are full of books that they can’t give away because their content is outdated and no longer interesting to the vast majority of people, or because of their condition. These are the books that I pull from. My goal is to give these books new life by celebrating what makes them interesting, rescuing them from sitting indefinitely on a shelf.
These works originate from my love of books. I’ve always read books and keep and collect them for many reasons—for inspiration, as reference, and as objects that hold memories and meaning. I grew up reading a lot and treasured books I received as gifts. I was also deeply influenced by the 50-cent book table at the library I visited often as a child and adolescent.
While borrowing books from the library was wonderful, it required keeping track of them and returning them on time—something my family often struggled with. The books on the 50-cent table, however, were different. They were inexpensive and had a low “value,” which gave me the freedom to treat them as I pleased. I could carry them everywhere, wear them out, and use them however I liked. This sense of freedom with an object definitely shaped the way I think about collecting versus transforming.
Are you working on any upcoming shows?
I’m currently curating an exhibition of work from my ongoing collaborative project Cut Me Up Magazine for the Vassar College Art Library, set to open in January. Cut Me Up invites artists to engage in visual dialogue by transforming each other’s artwork in response to each new call by a guest curator. Like my own work, Cut Me Up explores the possibilities of deconstruction and transformation—examining what it means to reimagine an object or, in this case, a piece of art. This exhibition will feature works by artists published in the magazine, showcasing how they interact with and transform one another’s pieces from issue to issue.
Follow Andrea on Instagram: @andreaburgay
Things on Our Radar This Week
The Cut Me Up show, curated by Andrea, at the Vassar College Art Library in January
RIP Walter Dahn, a progenitor of “Bad Painting” and a key figure in the Neue Wilde movement
Plaster’s agony aunt column deals with the problem of convoluted exhibition texts
A cool White Cube video on Howardena Pindell’s process
The Best Painting Shows in London This Month
Gabriel Hartley at Seventeen Gallery (ends 21 Dec)
Machine Painting at Modern Art EC1 (ends 14 Dec)
Charlotte Winifred Guérard at Palmer Gallery (ends 21 Dec)
Cullinan Richards at Alma Pearl (ends 21 Dec)
Thanks for reading, see you next time!
Oliver & Kezia xx
Palette Talk is free and we hope to grow with your support. If you’ve enjoyed reading, drop us a donation via PayPal…