Let Abstraction Bend the Rules of History....

Past Lives, New Layers

Past Lives, New Layers explores the friction between memory and imagination—where vintage street scenes, clipped from forgotten magazines, are reborn in surreal, abstract compositions. By layering figures of the past into bold new contexts, each collage becomes a portal to a reimagined history—part truth, part dream, entirely untethered from time.

Jon Fielding

Blog Post _ 19/06/25

There’s something hypnotic about old magazine street scenes — men in crisp hats, women in elegant postures, cities humming in black and white. They whisper stories frozen in time, snapshots of lives and moments we only glimpse but feel connected to. But what happens when we disturb that stillness, tearing these characters from their vintage frames and placing them in bold, abstract compositions? How does the past transform when reimagined through the lens of today’s creative impulses?

My latest series, Past Lives, New Layers, explores exactly this question.

By contrasting documentary-style imagery with chaotic, painterly layers—vivid color fields, brutal cut-outs, surreal overlays—I seek to disrupt nostalgia and reframe memory. These aren’t just past lives on parade; they are recontextualized personas navigating imagined realities. A 1950s pedestrian might now float weightlessly across acid-orange shapes, while a mid-century Parisian avenue dissolves into pools of ink and fractured geometry. The familiar dissolves into the fantastic, inviting viewers to see beyond the archival and into a newly created narrative space.

This tension—between the literal and the lyrical, between history and imagination—creates room for fresh interpretations. Who were these people? What if their stories didn’t end when the photograph was taken? What if they existed outside their moment in time, carrying with them desires, fears, and dreams that transcend decades? In this series, the collage becomes a dialogue rather than a monument, inviting a conversation between past and present, memory and invention.

For fellow artists and creatives: consider looking closely at your vintage sources—not just the obvious elements, but the small overlooked details—a crooked tie, a sideways glance, a half-hidden smile. These fragments hold untold stories and possibilities. Build your new visual worlds around them. Allow abstraction and imagination to bend the rules of history. Let these old souls walk new paths, inhabiting scenes that never were, yet feel deeply resonant.

In Past Lives, New Layers, the past is never fixed; it is fluid, layered, and alive—waiting for us to rediscover, reinterpret, and reinvent.

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