A Promise Between Only Us, Mixed Media Collage on Paper

The Original

A Promise Between Only Us by Robin Rivers is an original piece of mixed media collage on paper from the Albertine Series. I created this piece using antique postcards, archival pieces, found photography, handmade papers, and acrylic medium. 

The piece measures 11×14″ (w/h) unframed. Shipping will be calculated based on location.  Please note that colours and contrast vary between different monitors.  The colours may not match your monitor’s display exactly. Additionally, copyright of my artwork does not transfer with purchase.

The Inspiration for A Promise Between Only Us by Robin Rivers

Paris, the city of light, romance, wonder. At times, it may seem cliché. But, what of its magic? Its way of drawing one in and reconstructing how we perceive the world? Through the Albertine series, I wanted to explore how memory and time fragment, reconstructing themselves into spaces that live vividly in our experience, even when they are not a faithful representation of the original.

A Promise Between Only Us celebrates the Belle Epoque of France. Each element is carefully chosen and cut to capture a vignette written by Henri in which he is caught up in the history of Jean D’Arc and her beauty, imagining her as Albertine while on a photo club tour of Rouen.

Sources

• • The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access (public domain)
    • Nicholas Cochin, Horizontal Panel with a Row of Flowers Above a Frieze with Figures in a Landscape, from “Livre Nouveau de Fleurs Tres-Util” (1645) (PD)
    • John White Alexander, Repose, (1895) (PD)
    • Marcus and Co., Brooch, (1900) (PD)
  • Found antique postcard from Rouen, anonymous, late 19th century
  • Found art card from Leon-Jules Lemaître
  • Artist materials
    • Handmade papers, acrylic matte medium, handwritten elements

Notes on Care

Albertine is a love story at heart. I build each collage from public‑domain materials—primarily found pieces, Paris Musées archives and The Met Open Access—and note what’s known about dates and collections. While the work leans into romance, I set Henri and Albertine within the city’s real textures: its boulevards and bright nights, and the lives working behind the light. Where details are uncertain, I mark them as circa. My aim is to honor the past—its beauty and its blemishes—while inviting you into a story that feels intimate and true to its time.

The Artist

Robin Rivers is a multidisciplinary storyteller. She explores cultural memory keeping and technologies of circulation—how stories and images travel between people and across generations. Her practice folds writing and original photography into her mixed-media collage process. She examines how documented archives and personal interpretation shape our shared understanding of the past and how preservation itself is shaped by power, privilege, and historical upheaval. Robin creates all pieces at Studio Albertine in Vancouver, Canada—on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples. This includes the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Before you go, check out more of my work HERE.

Finally, be sure to follow me on SUBSTACK