Special Episode: Edgard Barbosa
Artist Edgard Barbosa
On this special episode, we are joined by Brazilian-born, New York–based collage artist Edgard Barbosa, whose art practice navigates the intersections of memory, media, and identity.
About the Artist
Edgard Barbosa is a Brazilian collage artist based in New York City whose work explores the fragmentation of identity through commercial imagery, technology, and memory. Blending analog and digital processes, Barbosa developed a unique folding method he calls korigami—a fusion of origami and collage—as the foundation for his compositions, which are then scanned, remixed, and restructured digitally. These layered works echo the tension between design systems and lived experience. Influenced by modernist grid structures and street advertising, his collages function as a form of spiritual archaeology—mining memory from the ever-discarded language of advertising. His work has been exhibited in galleries across New York, Florida, and Washington, and featured in publications such as Revue Colle and Contemporary Collage Magazine.
KORi_24_17 — 2024, paper collage digitally enlarged, Giclee printed on Hahnemuhle, German etching, 24 x 24 inches, Edition 1/1
KORi_25_11_SOFTFEAR — 2025, paper collage digitally enlarged, Giclee printed on Hahnemuhle German etching, 24 x 24 inches, Edition1/1
Artist Statement
“My work investigates how memory—always fragmented and layered—interacts with the flood of globalized commercial imagery and personal history. As an immigrant, visual media offered me a universal language to navigate different cultures and environments. That experience shaped my approach to collage, where I use folding, layering, and digital techniques to break down mass media images and rebuild them into emotionally charged compositions. These collages reflect the noise and dissonance of modern life while capturing the fractured, nonlinear way we remember.
Formally grounded in modernist grids—drawing from figures like Mondrian, Mies van der Rohe, and Niemeyer—I intentionally distort those systems through a self-invented process I call “korigami.” This folding technique manipulates found textures and ads without erasing their origin, creating tension between order and disruption. The result is a visual language that both critiques and reinterprets modernist ideals, echoing how identity is continually shaped by overlapping influences. By mining commercial imagery for its emotional residue, I aim to uncover the deeply personal in what is often dismissed as mass-produced ephemera.” — Edgard Barbosa, 2025
Sudden Expected, See — 2020, paper collage digitally enlarged, Giclee printed on Hahnemuhle German etching, 24 x 24 inches, Edition 1/1
Millennial Blade — 2019, paper collage digitally enlarged, Giclee printed on Hahnemuhle German etching, 36 x 20 inches, Edition 1/1
KORi_25_2_FOREVER CHAINED TO YOURSELF — 2025, paper collage digitally enlarged, Giclee printed on Hahnemuhle German etching, 36 x 24 inches, Edition 1/1
“I feel like I am called to represent the present which is why the work looks the way it looks.”
KORi_24_20 — 2024, paper collage digitally enlarged, Giclee printed on Hahnemuhle German etching, 24 x 24 inches, Edition 1/1
Ambient//Ambivalent — 2024, paper collage digitally enlarged, Giclee printed on Hahnemuhle German etching, 36 x 24 inches, Edition 1/1
Organs Within_001 — 2023, paper collage digitally enlarged, laser print collage on canvas, 36 x 36 inches
Learn more about Barbosa’s episode.
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Bio, artist statement, images courtesy of Edgard Barbosa
