How Jana Frost Uses Collage And Set Building To Explore Time Symbolism And The Subconscious

Creative Boom: Inspiration Art & Culture How Jana Frost uses collage and set-building to explore time, symbolism and the subconscious The London-based artist draws on archival imagery and a nomadic upbringing to create work that feels unfamiliar and impeccably handmade. Written By: Ayla Angelos 9 June 2026 artist portrait. Photography by Brian Lockyer Born in Belarus, raised in Estonia, and having spent a significant portion of her life in Malta before settling in London, Jana Frost describes herself as a "third culture kid" – and that layered, peripatetic identity runs through everything she makes.

"There's always been something in me that's drawn to the symbols and stories that travel across cultures, that mean something to people regardless of where they're from," she tells Creative Boom. "I think that's partly why I became so fascinated by symbolism, how the same archetypes resurface across completely different traditions, and how symbols carry meaning almost subconsciously, before you've even had time to analyse them. That feels very connected to how I make work." Jana studied Fine Art, with a focus on sculpture and ceramics, but the physical demands of the medium made it difficult to sustain while moving frequently.

Collage offered a way forward due to its portability and immediacy, while still allowing her to think spatially and construct worlds. Over time, those instincts towards scale reasserted themselves. "The collage work started expanding into physical space," she explains, "into sets and installations – almost like returning to sculpture, but through a different language." artist portrait.

Photography by Brian Lockyer Portrait, Photography by Sophia French Her practice now sits somewhere between collage and set-building, and her ideas tend to begin in a subconscious place, like dreams, feelings she can't yet articulate or an image that won't leave her alone. "If something creates a sense of curiosity in me, I'll keep digging into it," she says, "researching, collecting references until it forms into something I want to express visually." Folklore, mythology, the origins of fairy tales, and the psychology of collective storytelling all feed into the work.

So too does cinema, particularly the era before digital editing or CGI, when filmmakers had "almost no tools, no digital editing, no CGI, no safety net. I think that era represents a kind of peak of human creativity under constraint," Jana says. "The idea that limitation forces invention – and that the most atmospheric worlds are often built from the simplest means." Jana's process starts with a sketch, followed by deep archival research – digging into old illustrations, library scans and historical prints – before she moves into digital assembly to test composition and scale. Then comes the printing, cutting, stitching and placing.

"And that's where it gets unpredictable," she says. "There's a constant conversation between the digital and the physical, and the final work always carries the evidence of that – the seams, the joins, the slight imperfections." Vogue BTS Vogue, Photography by Elio Nogueira Vogue, Photography by Elio Nogueira Vogue, Photography by Elio Nogueira Time also springs up as a recurring motif. Jana is drawn to early collage techniques where artists would reprint compositions using a press, causing the ink to bleed and merge until the original and the new elements became indistinguishable.

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While the exploration of time and subconscious symbolism in art is intriguing, its direct application to brand strategy is somewhat niche, making it moderately impactful and relevant to professionals in the field.