John Stezaker at the Whitechapel gallery, London.

John Stezaker Mask XXXVI, 2007.

John Stezaker: Old film portraits, vintage postcards, cut and paste together.

British artist John Stezaker is fascinated by the illusion of images. Born in Worcester, and attended the Slade School of Art in London in the 1960s. Stezaker was a senior tutor in critical and historical studies at the Royal College of Art in London up until 2006.

Stezaker’s winning formula for the creation of his artwork is primarily collaging together two found, ‘vintage’ images, to create one new image with a new meaning.

Hoarding vintage film stills and studio publicity portraits from the seventies, he combines them with postcards to produce absurd compositions. By very skilfully and subtly adjusting and slicing separate images together, Stezaker creates unique new works with what appears to be minimal effort, yet the outcomes are commendably sophisticated.

  Stezaker’s famous Mask series fuses the profiles of glamorous movie stars with caves, or waterfalls, making images of beauty. Postcards of natural happenings, such as waterfalls, obscure the luxuriously lit faces of men and women, to allow unexpected windows on to the abstract landscapes of their minds. Postcards masking faces or hovering above them like ideas. His juxtapositions are not seamless, so that the eye is confronted by obvious disjoints that the mind has to resolve.

  This major exhibition of John Stezaker gives a chance to see works from the 1970’s to present. The word ‘surrealism’ comes to mind when looking at the exhibition, due to the juxtapositions of his collages. An interesting display of works, and a very well organized visual exhibition. The positioning of works in series force the observer to create a narrative across the series of pieces. The small pieces forces the viewer to walk up close, and engage with them up close, rather than looking at the work from a distance. By changing the distance in which these pieces are viewed, slows down the pace at which you walk through the exhibition. The white walls and the pieces spaced out. The atmosphere in the room was very quiet, and had a feeling of calm. The atmosphere made you reflective on the work you were viewing.