Katy Williamson: Collage, Animation, and Embroidery Reconstruct Faces

New Zealand-born artist Katy Williamson, born in 1982 and currently based in the United Kingdom, creates hand-made analog collages that deconstruct and reassemble photographic faces. Her practice involves cutting, shifting, and freely recomposing images, a technique that makes her work compelling because altering a single detail can completely transform an expression or the perception of a face. The same fragmentary approach extends into animation, and takes yet another form in her series “/emboidery,” where she replaces collage with needle and thread, making small interventions on images that change their appearance. Williamson’s visual language has also entered publishing, with collaborations for outlets including The Sunday Times Magazine, Wired, and Politico, bringing her methods into contemporary stories and imagery. In her own words, “Collage helps us see what we know in new and dynamic ways. Through the act of taking something, dismantling it, and recreating it, we can look at it again with different eyes.” The artist shares her work on Instagram under the handle @cutandrepeat_, and images are credited to katy-williamson.co.uk. The article was published by Objects. magazine.