Bryan D. Price

The Compulsive Worshipping Company#

Artist’s Statement#

Most of the collages I make are similar to this, which is to say, grids. In some cases, I use cut out squares of existing images (usually from magazines and books). This one, though, is made purely from cut out squares of material I produced (watercolor, ink, and pencil on newsprint and found book paper). The squares are mounted on a used Chemex coffee filter (natural). I usually paint and draw on the filters and cut those into squares to be mounted onto watercolor paper or into notebooks. I tend to think of these as abstract collages but it may just be a case that they are parodies of both order and abstraction. There may also be a hint of parody to the title, which I think of as a reference to the James Tate poem (and book) The Worshipful Company of Fletchers.

Traditions and Ceremonies of the Supreme Autocratic Power#

Artist’s Statement#

I’m drawn to the idea of the palimpsest, of writing on writing or over-writing something. In this case the pages are from The New Testament. I don’t think there’s any special significance, but using something so hallowed, I can see how that might be hard to believe. Like a lot of the materials (by which I mean paper) I use, I found these copies of The New Testament in a little free library near my house. The title is literally cut out of Chernyshevsky’s What is to be Done (found not in a little free library, but abandoned on the street). A lot of times juxtapositions (in this case between title and source material) are accidents, however happy. This particular piece is scanned out of a note or sketch book.

Unto the Phoenix Lamp of Joy#

Artist’s Statement#

Aside from a few rudimentary drawings, nearly everything I do (in terms of visual art) can be classified as collage. Most of the collages I produce though are made up of engridded squares or sometimes circles (like the rubber stamping here). This one is different. I think I was inspired by Jim Jarmusch’s book Some Collages, which are made almost exclusively of transposed heads. In this case I used a piece of gum foil. I collect gum and cigarette foil from the street, which is pretty easy to find where I live. The text that I added comes from an old compilation of Renaissance literature that I found in a little free library. The main frame of the collage is from a copy of the Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute, which is chock full of such war-machine ads.

About the Artist#

Bryan D. Price is the author of A Plea for Secular Gods: Elegies (What Books, 2023). His stories, poems, and collages have appeared or are forthcoming in Noon Annual, EPOCH, Bear Review, Permafrost Magazine, and elsewhere. He lives in San Diego, California.