Since its inception by Picasso and Braque almost a century ago, collage (and the more recently coined term appropriation art) has played an important role in the development of 20th Century Art and continues to attract new admirers and exponents for its techniques, not least the artists featured in Olyvia Fine Art’s new exhibition, ‘Media appropriation’. The three featured artists all approach their practice in very different ways and yet have something quite obviously evident in common - the desire to appropriate images, objects and text for their own ends; whether the subject is concerned with the objectification of women or the role of mass media and advertising in society or is simply concerned with aesthetics alone these artists are assured they are following in a tradition that is steeped in history.
 
By appropriating various media the artist transforms the source material giving it a whole new existence, in some examples the material becomes re-contextualized and subsequently takes on a whole new meaning. In Ryan Oliver’s piece Maybe I’ll go buy a magazine the artist creates an elaborate landscape filled with grotesques running rampage and devouring what appears to be human flesh, upon further investigation we discover these ‘grotesques’ are in fact montages of women’s body parts appropriated from pornography and fashion magazines. What was once perceived by some as beautiful and desirable has mutated into something altogether quite different, shocking, and even horrific perhaps, but then is that really any different to its source material? This is of course dependant on the viewer’s point of view and it is this idea of transformation, physically and symbolically, that is essentially what underpins the nature of the artworks presented in ‘Media Appropriation’.