About Joe...
Joe Webb is renowned for his thought-provoking, hand-made analogue collages and oil paintings.
Working from his studio in Lewes, UK, he cuts and pastes vintage magazines and printed ephemera by hand to create collages that explore social, environmental, and existential themes.
Webb has exhibited in many prominent galleries over the past 15 years, including the Saatchi Gallery, where he has a permanent collection of prints on display.
“I create art that tackles everything from environmental issues to the confusion of navigating life on a huge ball of rock hurtling through outer space. My current focus is painting, ranging from hazy memories of landscapes to intimate figurative works. My newest pieces have explored modern day culture and everyday experiences, capturing moments that sit anywhere between the mundane to the mystical.
Since graduating from the University for the Creative Arts in 1999, I have held two solo exhibitions at London’s Saatchi Gallery. My original collages can currently be seen on display there as part of The Saatchi Gallery’s recent The Sun & Moon exhibition.”
“Joe navigates a rich landscape with grace and humor, making nice with many recognizable visual pastimes. He plays them against each other in a way that puts different eras in dialogue, allowing characters to travel far from their 50’s Home Gardening Magazine roots to the far cosmos. He flirts with the themes of nostalgia and loss but ultimately composes lighthearted images that are in dialogue with today’s sampling culture, collapsing and hacking together sources from across the universe in fun and rudely jacked up color schemes.”
“I started making these simple hand-made collages as a reaction to working as a graphic artist on computers for many years. I like the limitations of collage...using found imagery and a pair of scissors, there are no Photoshop options to resize, adjust colours or undo.
My collages work to a basic rule of sourcing just two or three images... with these I can reinvent the original scene to communicate a new idea.”
Photo by @stewartbywater