Your Daily Awesome

Inside of every acid freak lives a secret gardener: Fred Tomaselli’s collages have gotten infinitely more complex and beautiful over the past few years. One reason is that he finally quit being the “guy who makes collages of pills and cannabis leaves” to just concentrate on making great collages, and another reason is that he apparently loves to garden.

Of the 12 paintings in the show, one in particular, “Migrant Fruit Thugs” (2006), has a storybook quality. It presents two birds of an imagined species perched regally on a tree branch, surrounded by leaves from Mr. Pietromatire’s fabled fig trees. The stars in the night sky appear like psychedelic explosions. The fig leaves, ranging from olive to gold, appear to flutter in the wind, even as they sit trapped, unmoving, in resin.

“I think that’s when the work started getting good,” Mr. Tomaselli said, “when I started acknowledging the importance of endeavors like gardening. You need to be open to the way your life works and not deny it. It makes the work better.”

An exhibition of Tomaselli’s work is on view at James Cohan Gallery until Nov 11.