John Armstrong, who lives in Toronto, and Paul Collins, who lives in Paris, have maintained a collaborative, intermedia art practice since 2000.

The artists write about this series:

Cache-misère translates into English as 'band-aid solution,' and refers to a coat worn to hide shabby attire.

cache-misère is the title of a series of colour photographs on which we paint images, text and swatches of colour. Our photographs and painted images record places, events and objects we come across in the course of our daily activities. The photographs are compositionally completed by the addition of painted elements that, to varying degrees, obscure the underlying picture. The painted images most often represent domestic bric-a-brac painted either from observation in the manner of a traditional still life or copied from illustrations. Our painted photographs are no longer seamless windows onto reality, but assume a new logic where any editorial narrative is complemented by the associative synergy found in abstract painting.

This series was one of my happiest art discoveries in 2010, where it was part of the brilliant and exhilarating CONTACT 2010 photography festival in Toronto. I'm delighted by the multi-disciplinary intercontinental collaborative playfulness and seriousness of this artwork, (and also by the fact that creative duo who share their flights of fancy are named John and Paul).

See and read more here in Lens Culture, and also at the artists' website.