Can we call collage one of the main artistic expressions of our century, and the one that came before? Maybe. Mash-ups are present in almost all segments of art, and if we look closely, considering the context, even artificial intelligence could be seen as a form of collage. It is a metaphorical collage where we can't see the edges but which still draws from a source — in this case, an infinite database.

The Web3 era is bringing collagists back to the scene in a different way. Cutting and pasting now involves not just mainly the digital as it did in the first decade of the XXI Century; it's between scissors and blockchain — and that's where I found Mime.

“Since I started making collages, I have ideas to create every day, every minute. I never get bored in my daily life with creating,” says Maxime, better known as Mime, an artist born in Tours, France. If you've seen a cobalt blue liquid flowing down your timeline over black and white collages, in portraits that remind us of the most artistic fashion editorials we could ever have seen, we are probably reflecting on the same person.

Mime lived in Paris for seven years, from 2013 to 2020, and I asked how this experience reflected on his artistic journey: “I worked in the contemporary art & design sector, and it has greatly influenced my artistic approach. All the mediums and materials I've seen had a huge impact on my approach. I also met a lot of friends in the fashion industry and at rave parties, which has led me to a certain fashion sensibility,” he told me in an exclusive interview with Phigital Mag.

It's not uncommon for certain tones to become a kind of signature for an artist. Mime's cobalt blue was born when his path crossed with a can of spray paint in an art supply store: the color suddenly captured his attention — and today it captures ours, through his artistic hands.

“Black and white is also a way for me to keep the initial subject as minimalist as possible. It offers me a huge surface to work on without being overloaded with details. I want the audience to see 2 or 3 catching points maximum. The cobalt blue has been my signature since I started making collages”, he explains.

Regarding his creative process, Mime says that fashion particularly inspires him in terms of female representation: “Fashion photographers know how to put a specific sensibility into women’s gestures and expressions in a minimal visual approach. I am very fascinated by the feelings a picture of a woman can provide to the audience. In my work, those visuals can provide an additional feeling in a minimalistic way, so I can add a bit of my collage practice to keep it minimal and efficient as well,” he says.

In some works, Mime uses digital lights added with After Effects and some video editing as well. “But I always work with paper and real-life materials to make it look real, there's a grain that is inimitable with paper. I think I'm contrasting/making a strong identity for my work by being attached to real-life visuals in this almost fully digital world,” and he's right: his work already has, in fact, his visual signature.

Another visual element that is constantly present in his artworks is classical antiquity and Egyptian history. "I cut them, adding mixed media, and sticking visuals with the mood I had at the moment," he describes.

Regarding current projects, highlighting his "phygital" vein, the artist reveals the production of real-world sculptures: “I'm working on pieces for my upcoming exhibition in Brussels in June. I work along my series 'ECHOES OF THE PAST' that I upload on Objkt.com. I wanted to make this digital work real-life, so I work around printed aluminum cut forms to put these human silhouettes into real contexts like ours.”

I asked what keeps him motivated to create, and how to stay creative with the ups and downs of life. His response perhaps reflects a cut from our days, whose collage reveals a portrait of ourselves: “My downs rely on the algorithm of social networks when my work doesn’t get seen at all. With an audience come art projects, and art purchases. It can be annoying and frustrating for me when I compare my audience to other artists on social media. But to cheer myself up again, I focus on creating. This is my cycle."

These pieces by Mime that you've seen in this article were selected for the ongoing curation 'E-Loom: Rethinking and Weaving Fashion in The Web3 Age' by Galerie Gaudard on the Objkt.com platform. You can check them out and add them to your collection — all are available on the primary or secondary market.

>>> HERE

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MIME

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PHYGITAL MAG: ART | FASHION CULTURE | WEB3