Home and abroad combine in collaged photographs by Julee Holcombe in Portsmouth.

Although she took 10,000 photographs in China, Julee Holcombe struggled to use any of them in new collages.

“I didn’t have much to work with,” she said.

It was cloudy almost the entire three weeks she spent there, and she thought the photography looked flat and dark because of it. 

She later found out it was smog, not fog, that weighed down her work, and she thought the only way to save it was to add scenes from home, including Dover, where she lives.

An exhibition of the resulting work, “Made in Chimerica,” is on display at The Parlor at Plainspoke in Portsmouth through Aug. 24.

“Chimerica” is Holcombe’s most recent series, still in progress. The collaged photographs incorporate images from both China and America, suggesting narratives about their symbiotic relationship based on an exchange of goods, as well as ideas.

She toured China in 2007, taking thousands of photos with the hope of capturing the essence of the place and its people through images of typical settings and everyday life.

“We’re the same in many ways,” she said. “I think there’s simplicity in Chinese culture that we don’t see in America. We don’t live life as simply.”

But, she said, China is becoming more of a consumer culture, like America has been since at least World War II.

She said civilization is constantly changing. Every empire has its rise and fall, and now that America’s economy is dangerously unstable, it may be time for another nation to become more powerful.

But Holcombe makes no judgment, at least not out loud. She tells stories through the collaged photographs.

It’s easy to read into environmental and economic impacts of American influence, for instance, when the natural and man-made collide in the images, such as the seashore and a power plant or mountains and billboards.

Each piece combines anywhere from 10 to almost 200 of her original photographs into a single, new image that often mirrors the classical traditions of painting.

“The ideas I had couldn’t be taken in one frame,” she said.

In this series, Holcombe experiments with a technique called angle of totality, which is found in the Chinese tradition of scroll paintings and depicts multiple perspectives at once. Though she already practiced a similar technique with her collage work, she said, the tradition is more meditative, based on poetry, pristine beauty and experiencing the moment.

The large-scale prints are like illustrated maps of places just beyond possibility, where viewers can get lost exploring and deciphering, lingering longer than usual with more straightforward photography.

Holcombe teaches photography at the University of New Hampshire and was most recently part of a show at the Gallery at 100 Market Street in Portsmouth.

A signed, limited-edition folio, designed by Plainspoke and featuring the 11 photographs in the exhibition, is available at the gallery.

The Parlor at Plainspoke is at 18 Sheafe St., Portsmouth, 603-433-5969, www.plainspoke.com/parlor.