New York-based collage artist Kalen Hollomon makes the kind of technicolour digital collages that would appear to be quite at home on an innocuous blog about the everyday lives of New York subway travellers.
Hollomonís work is, at first glance, refreshingly simple yet bold in its execution. His whimsically playful collages, made by superimposing clippings from fashion and vintage porn magazines onto unsuspecting subway riders and everyday city dwellers, often generated on his iPhone, exemplify the DIY-aesthetic of the Instagram generation. Yet they also raise questions about privacy and flirt with the sexual, without being pornographic. “I try to subvert ërelationshipsí between images and how they interact. The part of an image that is sexual is just as important as the non-sexual part and I try to find a good balance. If itís too heavy on one side the image will capsize,” says Hollomon.
At an early age, Hollomon’s father told the artist, “Kalen, if you don’t practice fine art the Vice President will be assassinated!” The ever-impressionable young boy, Hollomon claims those words haunted him ever since—and the rest is history.
Yet for all the pseudo-sexual trappings, there’s a tongue-in-cheek, comedic undertone to his work, something that Hollomon fully embraces: “I try to create images that are thought-provoking, not necessarily for shock value. I’d like to impart an emotional collage beyond the visuals—a combination of humor and discomfort, love and anger. I hope sometimes they’re funny.”
But how do the collages happen? “I feel an idea and point of view are needed to bring vision and depth to a body of work and I like to try to think about the final product when I approach a new piece, but for me the magic, creativity and growth are born out of the process. In the process lies the romance.”
Hollomon names Robert Altman, Ray Bradbury, Mac Dre, John Cage and Coco Chanel as his greatest inspirations—an eclectic bunch, but one that, at the same time, makes perfect sense.
