“Floristic procession – California Blazes, The Wall Street Journal, Saturday / Sunday, August 22-23,” collage of newspapers and Japanese papers cut with X-Acto knife, 84 centimeters diameter. All images © Myriam Dion, shared with permission
For Myriam Dion, a newspaper’s narrative qualities go beyond the text on the page. The Montreal-based artist accentuates the daily briefs and profiles in publications like The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Le Monde by overlaying broadsheets with painstakingly cut newsprint. Brilliantly hued flowers veil an issue focused on the wildfires raging across California, while masked subjects appear in the foreground of a piece about the post-COVID economy. Each tableau centers on one narrative, supporting the journalism with intricate motifs and trimmed photographs spread across the unfolded issue.
Masking the text-based print with color and woven sections has been a recent addition to Dion’s practice. “This operation often doubles or triples the working time, but it helps solidify the works (which are already quite fragile) and gives more depth and possibilities to the patterns that I choose and invent,” she writes, noting that weaving thin strips through whole editions visually aligns her works more closely with fiber arts.
More often utilizing vintage copies of North American newspapers than she had previously, the artist has identified a through-line in many of the editions. “For a long time, and even today, the print media has been a forum articulated by and for the male sex, where women have occupied a limited place, and interestingly enough, the newspaper articles I have accumulated document the perception of women in the mass media over the last century,” she says.
Dion will be an artist in residence at the NARS Foundation in Brooklyn in 2021, where she plans to create 8-10 new pieces that merge these historic narratives with traditionally feminine art forms, like lacework and embroidery. The idea is subversive and pays “homage to the female public figures represented in these old newspapers, but more particularly to ordinary women to whom the recognition of any artistic contribution, both from a technical and conceptual point of view, has long been denied by the politics of art.”
View more of Dion’s elaborately collaged projects on her site and Instagram.
“Red Square, Moscow – Containment compliance is controlled thanks to an ‘intelligent surveillance system,’ March 31, 2020, Le Devoir,” collage of newspapers and Japanese papers cut with X-Acto knife, Japanese paper weaving, 60.5 x 59 centimeters
Detail of “Madrid, martyr capital of a grieving Spain, Le Monde, Saturday, April 4, 2020,” collage of newspapers and Japanese papers cut with X-Acto knife, 55.5 x 37.5 centimeters
Detail of “On a marche sur la lune, La Presse, Monday, July 21, 1969,” collage of newspapers and Japanese papers cut with X-Acto knife, Japanese paper weaving, gold and copper leaf, 91 x 63 centimeters
“Coronavirus – China’s risky plan to revive the economy, Financial Times, 11 March 2020,” collage of newspapers and Japanese papers cut with X-Acto knife, Japanese paper weaving, 30.5 x 46 centimeters
Detail of “Coronavirus – China’s risky plan to revive the economy, Financial Times, 11 March 2020,” collage of newspapers and Japanese papers cut with X-Acto knife, Japanese paper weaving, 30.5 x 46 centimeters
“On a marche sur la lune, La Presse, Monday, July 21, 1969,” collage of newspapers and Japanese papers cut with X-Acto knife, Japanese paper weaving, gold and copper leaf, 91 x 63 centimeters
Detail of “Floristic procession – California Blazes, The Wall Street Journal, Saturday / Sunday, August 22-23,” collage of newspapers and Japanese papers cut with X-Acto knife, 84 centimeters diameter
“Madrid, martyr capital of a grieving Spain, Le Monde, Saturday, April 4, 2020,” collage of newspapers and Japanese papers cut with X-Acto knife, 55.5 x 37.5 centimeters
Detail of “Madrid, martyr capital of a grieving Spain, Le Monde, Saturday, April 4, 2020,” collage of newspapers and Japanese papers cut with X-Acto knife, 55.5 x 37.5 centimeters
