PIECES of ART

Educator and portrait and mixed-media collage artist Naomi Azoulay celebrates womanhood in her work

-  Text Bryony Ammonds-Smith

Intuition guides Naomi Azoulay's creative pursuits. She is a master of collage, as well as a DJ and figurative painter. When she's not teaching creative freedom through her workshops, she's practising it.

Tell us about how you found your way into collage. I've been an art lover for as long as I can remember. I started collecting art books at a young age - something that only intensified during my art history studies at university. When I was living in the Coromandel, I attended a one-day collage workshop in Colville that sparked something in me. I went home inspired and began collaging straight away, first on cardboard, and then on wood panels.

I had this collection of art books, many secondhand or damaged, and I started cutting them up to use in my collages. It felt like a full-circle moment - reworking the very images that had inspired me for years into something new and personal. That combination of history, texture and reinvention continues to drive my work today.

There is something so freeing about collage. What do you think you like most about it? There are so many things I love about collage: its sustainable nature - you can create something meaningful from everyday, low-cost materials. There's a kind of magic in weaving together different places, times, contexts and realms into something entirely new. I love the references, the surprises, the happy accidents and unexpected discoveries that happen along the way.