Jessica Steele’s collage work is rooted in physical process and storytelling. She works primarily with hand-cut vintage print ephemera, including books, magazines, and other printed matter, preserving the textures, colours, and constraints of the original materials. Each piece begins with sourcing and cataloguing imagery. She sifts through found paper, isolates visual fragments, and allows themes and compositions to emerge through intuitive association. This tactile process of selecting and arranging fragments enables her to construct scenes that feel both familiar and strange, reframing the past through a contemporary lens.

Though collage is often associated with spontaneity, her practice is deliberate and methodical. She aims to create work that invites close looking and curiosity, where a single shift in scale or position can alter the reading of a piece. She is interested in how imagery takes on new meaning when removed from its original context, and how recombining those images can invite reinterpretation.