Les Paradis Perdus – Mixed Media Collage on Wood

The Original

Les Paradis Perdus 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 materials, found photography,handmade papers, and acrylic medium. 

The piece measures 15×17″ (w/h) unframed and is mounted on wood. 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 Les Paradis Perdus 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.

Through the social landscapes, I take single antique postcards from often-anonymous Parisian street photographers and build a narrative around them that explores not only the romance and longing of Albertine, but the wider social context of the eras from which the postcards emerged. This reimagining allows for a deeper sense of personal and societal remembering of the realities of Paris.

Les Paradis Perdus is inspired by the Champs-Elysées, along with the vintage Vue de Nuit postcards of the early 20th century. This piece includes archival images from Emile Hurtré,  Onésipe Aguado, letters from Juliette Drouet to Victor Hugo, archival images of garment workers, alongside my Albertine and a vintage postcard of the Champs-Elysées lights at night. It employs vellum and antique paper with matte medium. It speaks to a moment when Henri runs into a woman along the Champs-Elysées who he thinks, at first, is Albertine. They spend the day together and he learns of her life as a struggling garment worker.

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 my 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.

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