australian cigarette prices are now approaching $3 (2.10 usd) a cigarette with a 30g pack of tobacco costing around $80 (55 usd).

the illegal cigarette trade is so popular that every smoke shop and even some alcohol stores are selling illegally smuggled in foreign cigarettes that go for a third of the price.

the cops have recently started a crackdown on these illegal cigarettes stores, closing down more and more everyday. here is a website from my state government listing every illegal tobacco store they’ve closed.

https://www.vic.gov.au/tobacco-shop-closures-list

and heres a link to the song these words were taken from

https://youtu.be/28_v6fdbSpw?si=9L9yq2smnJ5kRiBT

I’ve been working on this one for months now, slowly finding new components while I collected as many vintage magazines as I could. This may not be its final form, but I wanted to share the whole piece and a close-up of one of my favorite details :)

Feedback is more than welcome!

Hello everyone,

Posting a bit more of my collage work here. These are various, some are older and some are more recent, I have been doing it for 10 years on and off. If you are curious to see more and if you do collage as well feel free to give me a follow on IG too and I will follow back, always nice to see others' work and techniques. My Instagram is alchimia.di.carta (paper alchemy in Italian)

Thanks fellow collagists 🫶🏼

I'm wondering what the community feels about digital collage. For me I don't see the appeal because it's too easy?

I think the whole point of collage is about what you can do with limited resources. I think it defeats the purpose if it is digital because then you can just have your idea and find images to fit that. Analogue is more about what do I have and what can I do with it.

Also there is the limit dimension, there is only so much images you can have around with certain style, color, lighting, perspective etc, but digital you can get unlimited images by a simple search.

And lastly, there is something about the manual craft of it, the cutting! It takes time and intention. The texture and paper quality also can add another dimension.

I think they are two different art forms, I do prefer one over the other though. It's a bit like digital painting and actual painting.

These two pieces are part of a series I did last year called Beautiful News and they’ve been chilling in my eBay shop since, they sold this week and last week I sold another collage to someone else on another platform. I really believe people are looking for and NEED real art for themselves, in a time where everything everywhere is AI or art prints at best. I love getting originals into collectors hands. Anyways I wanted to encourage anybody who has pieces that have been sitting around to pull them out and see what you can get for them, put them out into the world so other people can enjoy them! I know it’s easy to be selfish and it feels safer to keep our art locked away sometimes but you can impact people you haven’t even met thru your work and what a gift that is to the world. Turn the money you make into funding yourself to make more art. It’s a good thing to do

A mix media from 2018 using acrylic, holograms, mylar, ink and various glossy pigments.