A woman with blond curly hair sitting at a desk covered with magazines, papers, scissors, and a ruler, working on a creative project in a bright, rustic room.
A woman standing in a dry field holding a framed collage of an illustration of a woman with a bird on her shoulder, with her eyes closed and a content smile.
A woman smiling in the foreground at a party, with a decorated table and colorful collage on the wall behind her.

Hey, I’m Leah, a Toronto-born, Dallas, TX-based collage artist. I’ve always used humour and thrifting to cheer myself up, there’s no surprise its leaked into my artistic practice.

A woman with wavy blonde hair, blue eyes, and a warm smile is sitting in front of a red brick wall, wearing a floral blouse with red, green, and yellow leaves and flowers, and has a gold bracelet on her wrist.

Meet the artist.

After a lifetime of making collage, I finally got the courage to open Flanzella as an online shop in January 2020. I had 5 art prints for sale.

Although my timing of starting wasn’t the best (I hadn’t planned to start right before a global pandemic) it gave me the time I needed to become confident in my collage art. After months of creating, a friend and I decided to host an art exhibition in August 2020. It featured all the artwork we had created that year. To our surprise, almost every art piece sold, giving us both the monetary investment we needed to take our businesses to the next level.

Six years later and you can now buy 100+ surreal collage artworks, making this website one of the best places to buy collage art! 😉 It’s lead me to so many incredible opportunities for showing my work globally and teaching.

I couldn't have done it without my Flanz Fanz, thank you so much!

Leah

A collection of magazines and newspapers on a wooden surface, including issues of Better Homes and Gardens, National Geographic, and Life, with a pair of scissors, glue stick, and pen among them.

Meet the art.

Each collage you see is hand crafted from what I like to call "organized chaos". The process of creating each collage is always wildly different, which is why I have started sharing my process on YouTube! 

I use a variety of tools but most pieces are hand cut with scissors, smaller pieces are cut out using a craft knife, and I use a variety of gluing methods like medium and your classic archival quality glue stick (UHU is my go to brand)! 

Every collage is created using magazines from the 1920's to 1990's. I have a large collection that surround themes of femininity and the status quo. I got into vintage magazines during 2020 after receiving a huge pile of old ads from a woman at a flea market.

I asked, "what do you do with the rest of the magazines?" She said "I throw them out." I knew that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. 

I am able to give vintage pictures a new life and meaning in our ever changing world.

The Process.

Dive in and get a closer look at my art process. Here is a video using a traveling notebook.

Check out more of my YouTube videos here!

Follow the journey.

It was inevitable my whole life that I would be an artist. I never had much interest in anything else. I started collaging from a very young age but got hooked in high school. I'd decorate my locker and binders. 

When I went to university for multimedia, I worked primarily in video and audio. My passion for collage seeped into these mediums. While focusing on digital art for school, I really missed traditional collage. With all my projects being all online, collage was (and still is) my escape from the screen. I ran a collage club throughout university and continued through my corporate career.

I always saw collage as a hobby and not a career. I guess in my mind, it was less valued in society compared to painting or sculpture. It wasn't until 2019 I noticed a surge in collage work on social media... I knew it was my time to shine! Although I wish I could have stood up to take the lead, learning the digital sphere greatly helped my ability to work in new ways and share it with the world through videos.

I'm still on my journey but I am learning and practicing every day. At this time I am interested in the potential of mixing more of my passions into my art practice, like sewing and painting. This year my goal is to experiment multiple times a week. I’m excited by what my art could look like by the end of the year.

Decorative framed artwork of a woman in black and white pattern clothing, blending a city skyline with an artistic background, placed on a wooden sideboard near a potted plant.
Woman smiling in art exhibit booth with framed artwork hanging on white walls and a sign reading "FLANZELLA.COM @FLANZELLA" behind her.
A framed colorful surreal artwork of a human face with butterflies, a bird, and nature scenes on a shelf decorated with white flowers and plants.

Stay up to date, follow my Instagram!

I've been rather reflective these past few months, perhaps this whole year! Here are pieces I made from 2018-2020. Although I feel a lot of people look at my work and say my style is "minimalist", this was not always the case! For a long ti
"Strangers on the Subway" a mini series I made in 2019 featuring views from the Toronto subway. I've always admired the eccentric strangers of these moments. I certainly miss public transit in Dallas! (The last one was just an experiment I
A piece I made in 2022, Mr. & Mrs. Tea... For the couples that love to gossip together. There's something that always ignites within me when working in black, white, and red. It's a classic combination that I love so dearly!
The close up details of my last piece made for februllage 😍 it was so nice to be able to give all these scraps a good home. It feels like a monument for a large achievement!