US-based artist and graphic designer Errin Ironside makes abstract paper collages from repurposed books and magazines, navigating grief, fragmentation and the residue of loss through an intuitive process that transforms unease into something constructive.
Each collage begins with a small pile of papers. Errin Ironside curates them from her stash, building a colour palette and a loose sense of where a piece might go. She puts one down, glues it, and the process starts. From there it is intuition: adding papers from the pile, scanning for emphasis or contrast, letting sections get covered and buried as new elements arrive. Most works are completed in a single session. Some are left to settle and returned to with new energy.
The works are made from repurposed papers, books, magazines, photographs, materials she has made herself, dismantled and recombined into shifting abstract forms. Distortion, fragmentation and multiplicity are recurring qualities, reflecting an interest in what happens when things break down or are taken apart, and what it means to sit with that uncertainty rather than resolve it. “Abstract art is appealing to me because I feel drawn to the invitation to keep looking deeper,” she says. “What we see is not the only aspect of reality; there is always more depth and possibility in life.”
The practice is a direct response to grief, specifically the death of her mother, alongside other fractures from earlier in her life.
“My art helps me navigate these losses,” she says. “They have left me feeling fragmented, confused, and like pieces of me were lost. It’s a practice for accepting that I’m not broken, only changed. It’s a cycle from whole, then shattered, and eventually reshaped.”
The collage process enacts that cycle materially: things are cut apart, layered over, partially obscured, and composed into something that holds together without erasing what it was made from.
Errin Ironside is an artist, graphic designer and gardener based in the US. Her practice spans handmade collage, painting, photography, artist books, zines and quiltmaking, with a deep interest in the therapeutic potential of creative process.
Website: errinironside.com Instagram: @ironside_eyes
How it Holds Together, 2026. Abstract paper collages. Repurposed books, magazines, found papers, original photographs and handmade paper.
