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Cheryl Humphreys’ latest collage works embrace spontaneity, weaving together fragments of her artistic past into something wholly new. Inspired by Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy, Humphreys leans into Agar’s idea of “the fertile intervention of chance,” stepping away from her typically meticulous process to allow instinct and intuition to take the lead. Each piece is built from an archive of experiments, dye studies, and color tests collected over years and across geographies—where a sun print made in Oaxaca in 2020 might find itself alongside a natural dye study from 2016. These works are moments of serendipity, compositions that unfold in real time, offering a layered meditation on time, memory, and material.

In Humphreys’ words:

“Agar called collage ‘the mother of mobility’, and defined it as ‘a form of inspired correction, a displacement of the banal by the fertile intervention of chance or coincidence’. She attached great importance to the instinctual response and the ready collusion of previously unconnected images.”

“Collage was for sounding new resonances, for bringing out unexpected or hidden connections, in effect, for demonstrating the complexity of the world through wit and surprise.”

Two quotes from “Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy” 

This book currently sits on my nightstand. Eileen Agar is an artist I come back to time and again for her insights around assemblage and collage. “The fertile intervention of chance” is so enticing for someone like me who is so planned with my approach to making. These assemblages are a break from this. They allow me to reach into my vast archive of experiments, dye studies and color tests and let my instincts find moments of harmony. 

Although all of these works were assembled in 2024, the pieces they were made with span years and even countries… A sun print made in Oaxaca in 2020 sits next to a natural dye experiment from 2016.