When thinking about creating a collage in school, some may remember tearing images out of a magazine, ripping fabric or buttons off clothes, or picking up acorns and leaves, then pasting them onto cardboard or construction paper. However, the look and feel of collage goes further in the current exhibition “Rip! Tear! Collage as Critique,” curated by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities (CAH).
In this exhibit, running until Aug. 7 at I Street Gallery — as part of CAH’s headquarters at 200 I Street SE — 23 D.C.-based artists use their creations to comment on a fractured American history and modern life.
“We’re deeply proud to empower artists to speak freely through their work. We do not tone [or] police their feelings, their messages, or their creativity,” said Aaron Myers, CAH executive director, during the exhibition’s opening event in June. “Artists are essential truth tellers in our society, and it is our responsibility as a public agency to create space for them to reflect the world as faces.”
The collected works in “Rip! Tear!” stray from conventional approaches to paper collage by employing methods such as assemblage, quilting, bricolage, video, and photomontage that knowingly are not in sync with what is expected.
The exhibit is a commentary on the adverse treatment of people worldwide, coupled with a strong vision for the future.
Under the direction of CAH Curator Dr. Michelle May-Curry, a three-person juried panel chose the artists and their works for the exhibition.
“Positive change can come on the other side of things falling apart,” said May-Curry in describing the intent of “Rip! Tear!” at the opening event. “The premise for this show builds from a belief that curiosity for the act of ripping itself can lead to meaningful transformation.”
Works in ‘Rip! Tear’ Artists Discuss Visions Behind Work
Photographer Jarvis Grant, featured in the exhibition, used a technique called photomontage to create his 2016 piece titled “In Conversation.” What appears to be two women in the finished piece is really the same woman, to depict that she is in conversation with herself.
Photographer Jarvis Grant stands by his collage “In Conversation,” which is part of the “Rip! Tear!” exhibition currently at I Street Gallery. (Brenda C. Siler/The Washington Informer)
“You’re putting everything within one image,” said Grant, a D.C. resident and Howard University alumnus. “This is about four different images that are: the woman by the window, the woman on the bed, and the clouds, because I was thinking of layers.”
Other interesting approaches to collage seen in “Rip! Tear!” include Connor Czora’s “Trenton Vase Empire,” a 2024 collage featuring protest photos affixed to the front and back of a 1904 porcelain vase. The color photos capture Israel’s occupation of Gaza in 2023.
Paula Mans’ installations, “Branches Give My Self a New Name” and “Root,” tell a story of supernatural history in which an enslaved Black woman enters a protective, symbiotic relationship with the natural world. Her collages are made of soil, branches, and cotton collected from plantation sites in St. James Parish, Louisiana.
Paula Mans’ collage “Root” is in the “Rip! Tear!” exhibition currently at I Street Gallery. (Brenda C. Siler/The Washington Informer)
Working as a digital media and environmental artist, Andrew Kastner’s work titled “Rtdffew Gabri hides server” reflects a lifelong engagement with human relationships to the natural and material world.
Kastner had a life-altering stroke in 2022 that left him with reduced dexterity and severe aphasia, a neurological language disorder that impairs a person’s ability to speak, understand, read, and write. He uses technology to build images from fragments comprising millions of points, pixels, and environmental traces. His collage mirrors his post-stroke experience, in which words often arrive scrambled, inverted, or out of sequence, yet remain charged with meaning.
Then there’s Northwest D.C. resident Claudia Aziza Gibson-Hunter, who, five years ago, began researching the content for her collage titled “Lifting Spirits: Strategies for a time of Monsters.” Now, Gibson-Hunter’s 2026 mixed-media installation collage spreads up an entire wall in the I Street Gallery.
The visual experience offers a sense of birds in flight, depicted by brightly colored squares rising into the horizon. This collage blends African Diaspora with Eastern, Native, and Latin American cultures, as well as the natural and spiritual worlds.
Claudia Aziza Gibson-Hunter stands by her piece “Lifting Spirits: Strategies for a Time of Monsters,” which is part of “Rip! Tear!” at I Street Gallery. (Brenda C. Siler/The Washington Informer)
“I was looking at Reconstruction because compared to the political scene that we’re in right now, I’m thinking we need that energy now,” said Gibson-Hunter about the time in the U.S. in the mid to late 19th century, post the American Civil War. “The way that we built thousands of schools and colleges. We were in sync with each other, and we were building.”
May-Curry reflected on D.C.’s rich history as a home to collage artists such as Lois Mailou Jones and David Driskell, tapping the next generation to carry that legacy forward.
“The curation of this show treats collage as both a hyper accessible medium and a powerful metaphor for exploring America’s contradictory history during this 250th summer,” said May-Curry. “The show builds on the global energy and excitement for contemporary collage globally by explicitly troubling the boundaries of what we can call a collage. We are reminded of what creativity can do in times when clarity is needed most.”
The I Street Gallery at the Commission for Arts and the Humanities is located at 200 I Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. The “Rip! Tear!” exhibition is open for viewing Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Source: Washington Informer
