Born in 1970, Helge Wagner grew up in a little german village next to the city Giessen in the state of Hessia. Already in his early days, he was fascinated by art. His growing interest was mainly triggered by his Dad, who’s a painter, maintaining an ongoing subscription on art magazines. Feeling a creative urge in multiple genres, it was hard for him to determine the best outlet for his energy. Music, writing and art were competing constantly. In fact he changed his creative focus multiple times over the years, e.g. concentrating on songwriting intensively and loosing touch with art.
Looking back Wagner notices that in his life, collaging was always present – no matter what he did at a particular time. Already happily collaging in elementary school, he later discovers the collage techniques of Pop Artists Hockney, Hamilton and Wesselman. Juan Gris, George Braque and Pablo Picasso were big influences. Picasso not only as a collagist.
As a teen he’s testing the graphical aesthetics of Punk and New Wave – again using collage-techniques. Eventually as a student of graphic design the computer enters the field. Never the less he is collaging again, at least since purchasing a scanner in 1999.
Then Kurt Schwitters and the Synthetic Cubism are reinterpreted once more and quoted. Classic Pop-Art subjects are taken up and put into a new context. The digital principal is being ignored and inhaled at the same time.
In the meanwhile Helge Wagner made a lot of music, wrote a lot of words (worked a lot of work) and at last tried to pick up painting again whilst using collage as a medium in 2014. This venture went wrong: collaging took over and replaced painting in a second. It spread immensely and is still holding its presence.
Is collaging a sickness? What can one do about it?