Melanie Ezra is a Swansea based photo-collage artist who works using her own original, previously unpublished, photographs. She works in series, providing visual responses to external stimuli such as literature, science, and music. Her collages inevitably challenge the truth and memory of the original photograph.

In 2012 Ezra has exhibited her collages nationally and internationally. Her collages and photographic works have shown at Studio Voltaire London, as well as galleries in Hamburg, Venice, and several shows in New York. She is currently exhibiting at JMC Gallery, 9th Avenue, NY

Her most recent collection Small Worlds will premiere at Saith Gallery, Burry Port, Carmarthenshire, UK in January 2013.

Small Worlds

“Most people feel that the world looks like a photograph. I’ve always assumed that the photograph is nearly right, but that little bit by which it misses makes it miss by a mile. This is what I grope at.”

                                                                        -David Hockney

Small Worlds considers how the photograph fails to see truthfully but, more importantly, how we fail in our memories of the narrative that the photograph provides. We remember aspects of an event as pieces which we build mentally creating a vision which is not always accurate. This memory forms like a jigsaw; pieced together from fragments which do not always fit comfortably.

Each Small World is a collage reworking of an original photograph taken by the artist herself. By working with her own imagery Melanie Ezra questions the veracity and accuracy of a memory of original experiences. Each collage is flawed and unreliable in relating the image upon which it is based; it narrates differing qualities and interpretations on what can be considered the truth. The viewer, in seeing bits and pieces of an event arranged through collage, ultimately sees the artist’s own visual residue of the event.