On Display Now
Collage Collective
a group exhibit
The Emily Monk Davidson Gallery at the Farmville Community Arts Council is pleased to present Collage Collective, a group exhibition of works by four local artists: Erin Lockamy, Rakīa Jackson, Gail Ritzer, and Karen Warren. Marking their first presentation with our gallery, the exhibition represents a shared, yet deeply personal, exploration of collage as a medium of transformation, reflection, and connection.
Across generations and practices, these artists engage collage as a way of assembling meaning from fragments, “merging pieces like puzzles… originally never meant to fit together, but now reimagined into new worlds,” as Rakia Jackson describes her ongoing body of work, “Layered in Peace.” Jackson’s intuitive, layered compositions are rooted in “self-awareness, collective human experiences, and community healing,” inviting viewers to pause and reflect within spaces of openness and play.
For Karen Warren, collage is a lifelong way of seeing. “I believe I have been looking at the world with an artist’s eye all my life,” she writes, driven by a fascination with transformation, hidden imagery, and mystery. Her work seeks to “reveal the layers in every person’s life, and in the natural world,” echoing Alice Walker’s belief that “artists are messengers.”
Inspired by a creative assignment in the 8th grade, Erin Lockamy’s practice began with the simple, tactile pleasure of cutting paper. “Just cut something,” a soothing mantra that describes a process that keeps Erin coming back to their studio. Influenced by Dadaism and De Stijl, and constructed almost entirely from secondhand materials, Erin’s collages examine internet culture, identity, gender, and sustainability. These layered compositions reflect a contemporary world that feels “much more open but also at times dangerous and uncomfortable,” balancing familiarity with unease, and freedom with constraint.
Gail Ritzer brings decades of experience as an exhibiting artist and educator, working fluidly across fiber, painting, ceramics, and mixed media. Her practice reflects a commitment to surface, process, and teaching, informed by years of community engagement and national exhibition.
In partnership with these four talented artists, this exhibit was curated by the Gallery Manager, Christopher Allen, whose own creative practice centers on collaging hand-painted paper as a “therapeutic, low-stakes, high-reward” way of communicating complex ideas. United by reuse, layering, and intuition, Collage Collective invites viewers to consider collage not only as a technique, but as a way of making sense of the world, fragment by fragment, layer by layer.