The work: Sue Dowse, Lips like Jagger, 2023. Magazine collage, 76 x 76cm. Courtesy: the artist.
Mick Jagger is indisputably a musical juggernaut, but he is also a cultural icon of legendary proportions. His face is instantly recognisable, especially when cast with his unmistakable pout.
Using collage, South Australian artist Sue Dowse has captured the charisma of the rock legend in her work Lips Like Jagger. Dowse calls her approach to artmaking as “painting with paper”, where she creates imagery using anything from recycled magazines and old newspapers to maps, posters and patterns.
Part of the appeal of this approach to materials is its contribution to sustainable artmaking, but more importantly it adds another level to the work’s narrative. By reusing magazines in Lips Like Jagger, the artist is incorporating text that has been severed from its original context and that must now be decoded by the audience.
Dislocated phrases are scattered amongst the panes of Jagger’s face, encouraging viewers to take a careful look at something so seemingly familiar, the tangle of words impeding any simple resolution. Dowse’s use of collaged text echoes the power of the wordsmith’s voice, and the work’s bright palette makes tangible the forceful spectacle Jagger conveys on stage.