Eugenia Lolis Surreal Collages: A World Of Vintage Fantasy

Classifying herself as a “major geek” and an ardent sci-fi lover, it can be hard to connect the artist behind the Surrealist feminine collages to the woman herself. These are the dynamic facets of Greek-born Eugenia Loli – an artist garnering worldwide acclaim for her dreamy collages.
She has been cutting, collecting and putting together collages, “creating a nostalgia for a country that never was,” since she stumbled across the art form by accident in 2012. “I started collaging in 2012, after doing an animated music video for an indie musician. The video incorporated some collaging, so I had to do research on it,” she says and adds that there was no talk of a difficult beginning.

“I fell in love with that new kind of collages I was seeing on Tumblr at the time, and I got hooked. I was doing some filmmaking before collage, so the narrative part of filmmaking has passed on to how I make collages too.” Her inspiration comes from a broad range of sources. First and foremost, it comes from an impressive collection of old magazines. “I find vintage pictures online, and on my own collection of hundreds of vintage magazines. I have to be on the lookout for old mags and books all the time,” she says and explains that she starts of with a base picture and build the rest of the picture up around that.

And the result is a colorful, dreamy universe. Gold, rubies, and diamonds glitter with notes of nostalgic, melancholy brown-edged posters setting the tone for the pictures. For it’s all about creating an illusion about what was or what we simply think once was. “I’d love to evoke some wonder, possibly with some landscape collages,” she says, and adds that she hopes it evokes that kind of nostalgia in people.