Welcome to the DW Flack Art website. Here you will find my original, framed collage and décollage works for sale using magnificent vintage and antique papers, sourced worldwide for their distinctive, characterful qualities.

Décollage is a French term that means "to unstick" or "to take off", referring to an art technique where parts of an image are torn, cut, or otherwise detached to create a new one, rather than adding to it like the collage works you will also see here.

This is a core concept of the Nouveau Réalisme art movement, where artists would rip posters from walls and billboards to reveal layers of others beneath. Vintage and antique frames have been carefully chosen to compliment the tarnished, corrosive nature of the works, most displaying aged-worn yet admirably enduring characteristics.

You will also find high-quality limited edition Glicée art prints for sale in various sizes, made possible by partnering with a meticulous fine art printing specialist. For bespoke requirements, I can arrange outsized prints and discuss commissions.

Framing requirements can also be accommodated for prints.

Explore original artworks

My range of original works were created using antique and vintage papers, hand-made drawing and writing papers, and papers from a diverse range of other sources. They have unique characters which embody their histories, which can include folds, tears, discolouration, deterioration and disintegration.

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Explore limited edition prints

By working with a meticulous fine art printing specialist, I can offer high-quality Glicée limited edition prints of the original artworks on heavyweight fine art paper. The reproductive process has been carried out to a highly satisfying standard, capturing the original with pixel-perfect precision, enabling the characteristics of the paper and the manipulative processes to shine. Four sizes are available to select.

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About the artist

Art and design was my love in childhood, which grew alongside me in adolescence and will always endure. My formal training was in graphic design, which I didn't pursue as an occupation because it became too clinical to sustain my interest.

On self-reflection I realised that a sufficiently engaging creative process must be tactile, unconstrained and leave a bit of disorder and mess in its wake, its mark on the skin. I moved onto a rewarding career but it lacked the type of creativity that had inspired me in my formative years.

My engagement with art continued, but as an enthusiastic observer; a gallery and exhibition visitor; and a compulsive collector. I subdued a subtle creative longing in the years that passed, which persisted like a mild toothache.

In recent years I happened upon the décollage art form which roused me to address my deep-rooted creative longing. Self-taught, since that time I have been developing my interpretation of both collage and décollage, which continues to transform as I work with more and more enthralling papers, while keeping one eye on the inspirational and ever-expanding creative universe.

I value form over theme when creating. Ordinarily, I seek to achieve irregular compositions that portray frenetic movement. My work draws attention to the structural qualities of the papers I use as I endeavour to manipulate them.

The diverse structures in the papers cause their contrasting behaviours; at times they cooperate as I stick, tear and overlay, at others they respond disobligingly, governing the direction of the creative process.

The décollage work layers paper on top of paper, rips, cuts and scrapes excavating background layers to join the foreground, arriving at a reimagined whole.

I often describe the décollage works from the perspective of a commentator; the process is unpredictable and resists control, leaving me to reflect on an outcome that can bear little resemblance to my initial vision, as if I am comprehending another's work. The collage works are simpler to tame, allowing more time for contemplation as I assemble them but also more time to obsess over paper selection. Themes are secondary and emerge from the works as they evolve, but often reveal themselves fully in retrospect, sometimes there isn't a theme that I can fathom.

Romance, beauty, envy and loss frequently bare themselves as I evaluate a completed piece, perhaps disclosing emotive themes that we commonly relate to.

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