Offcuts by Cat Russell

Colonna Contemporary is proud to present Offcuts, a solo exhibition by collage artist Cat Russell, opening August 15th at the gallery. The show brings together a new body of work built from the margins, the trimmings, the edges, the discarded pages that once lived other lives.

In an age dominated by speed, efficiency, and content churn, Offcuts offers a quiet act of defiance. Each work, constructed from scraps of old comics, Gustave Doré engravings, tagboard, and forgotten pages, is cut and assembled by hand, layer by layer. The result: narrative-driven scenes and dreamlike abstractions that honor process as much as outcome.

“The joy is in the process as much as the outcome,” says Russell. “We can choose what we give meaning to. For me, meaning lives in every cut, every scrap, every moment spent building a composition—not just in the finished piece.”

The show’s title, Offcuts, captures both the physical and philosophical nature of Russell’s practice. These works, born of what the world might overlook or discard, become layered meditations on memory, place, and the beauty found in remnants. Some suggest specific histories or landscapes; others float in a liminal, abstract space. Collectively, they invite viewers to slow down, to sit with the fragments, and to reflect on what can be pieced together from what remains.

Artist Statement

When preparing for this show one of the tasks was to create an artist statement.  I read a few to figure out ‘what’ to do, but in the end chose not to follow those guidelines.  Rather then a cold, 3rd person writing of superlatives and adjectives, I’ll simply write this as me, and in a way, to me.

​My practice is a time consuming one where much of the joy is in the methodical and meditative way a piece is produced.  Increasingly in our world we find everything revolving around speed and efficiency. Countless studies show the average attention span is rapidly shrinking, and its effect in what we consume and how is becoming ever more apparant.  I often wonder if the ‘epic’ has a place in our near future or if the highlight reaction reel supercut of an epic will be more generally preferred.

​Despite this, or rather, in spite of this, I have continued to double down on my belief that we can choose what we give meaning to. I give just as much meaning to the process as I do the outcome when making my art.

When titling this show, Luca Ponsato recommended the word Offcuts “the leftover scraps and materials that remain after something is created”.  And it seems fitting.  While these pieces find themselves born from scraps of old comics, tagboard, and gustave dore prints, they are also just as much a creation from a leftover practice of worrying less about feeding an ever hungry algorithm with content and more about working with intention and the understanding that I don’t want to rush to the end. Rather we should savor what we do and relish in the very act of doing it.