Tag: cutouts

Re-Purposing Maps: The Art of Mark M. Garrett

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Mark M. Garrett’s Unterwalden (2020), a colourful example of re-purposed map art.
Mark M. Garrett, “Unterwalden,” 2020.

Responding to my post about Joanathan Bessaci’s map cutout art, Fred DeJarlais wrote to point out that the California Map Society’s journal, Calafia, featured another artist using a similar technique, Mark M. Garrett, in its Fall 2022 issue. It’s a good piece in which Garrett goes into detail about his inspiration and method, but since Calafia’s archives are member-only, I’ll point you to Garrett’s website, which is full of examples of his work, and where he explains his work thusly:

At some point I began to fold paper and ‘draw’ with scissors . . . particularly re-purposing maps or anatomy texts culled from flea markets or estate sales. I often incorporate opaque and transparent watercolor as an extension of the color palette printed on the charts. I find comfort in the creative and obssesive nature of these collages as each reveals a unique process and persona over time. New worlds emerge in oddly emotional interpretations of once familiar places. There’s an anticipation as they shift and evolve from factually printed documents to new and potentially uncertain places of possibility. The technique of hand-cutting maps and painting in the gaps emerged for me as a metaphor of holding the world even as its outlines shift radically and unpredictably.

The Map Cutout Art of Joanathan Bessaci

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Joanathan Bessaci, “Waiting.” A collage of map cutouts that form a portrait of a face in negative space.
Joanathan Bessaci, “Waiting”. Galerie Jamault.

The art of Joanathan Bessaci includes maps cut out and layered to form images.

I presently work with old Michelin maps dated from roughly 1920 to 1970. I use old French Michelin maps because I like their color and texture but also because for me, they symbolize the roads that various family members have taken to get to France. My maternal grandmother emigrated to France from Vietnam and my paternal grandfather emigrated to France from Kabylia (Northern Algeria). I myself moved to Washington D.C. from Paris in August, 2016.

I was also drawn to old French Michelin maps because I have been surrounded by objects like them since I was a child. Both my father and grandfather have stands in Lyon’s largest flea market and I spent long hours there as a child and adolescent. Many of the maps that I use come from Lyon’s flea markets and others throughout France. 

My work presently consists of cutting portraits and other images into several maps. I chose my maps very carefully and try to integrate their geography, including lakes, rivers, oceans, roads, highways, parks and city centers into my images to highlight certain visual elements. Each of my pieces is made up of multiple maps which I cut out and layer on top of each other in between pieces of glass to create depth and texture.

It’s astonishingly well done. Bessaci’s maps often form images of animals, or people in motion; motorways intersect at locations on the body that evoke a circulatory system. The effect is even more dramatic in his anatomical works, where the map layers draw out hidden bones.

Here’s a time-lapse video of Bessaci creating one of his works:

An exhibition of Bessaci’s work, Mapping the Soul, wrapped up last week at the Zenith Gallery in Washington, D.C. It can also be seen at Galerie Jamault in Paris.