alex hamrick (www.notpaper.net)

In this artist's work, there is so much variation between sizes and materials, it almost feels like the work is by many artists! But this isn't a bad thing, Alex takes a lighthearted approach to collage by bravely taking on new styles and techniques. By working playfully and without constraint, these characteristics show up clearly in his finished pieces.

Name (Real or Screename): Alex Hamrick
URL (Blog, Website): http://skin-and-teeth.deviantart.com/, http://www.skinandteeth.net/ (under construction).
Location (Where are you from?): Born in Sarasota, Florida. Raised in Dallas, TX. Reside in Dallas, TX/Boston, MA

Q: Describe your work in 10 words or less.
A: Necessary. Always in danger of becoming stale.

Q: What do you like to work with (magazines, photographs, vintage)? Be specific!
A: I'm a big fan of found paper. Street stuff, things I pick up when walking around. Older things too, but I'm not concerned with vintage business. I like tags and stickers... paper with a lot of solid color. Used packaging. The dirtier the better, makes for good texture. I like cardboard and card stock like what you find as backing on complimentary hotel notepads. Brown kraft paper. Brown anything, really. I have a soft spot for that. Gray, too. Canal paper. Masking tape, scotch tape, Elmer's white glue, Yes! Paste, x-acto knives and blades, scissors, cutting mats and rulers. Bugs and fabric and hair. Wood. Cretacolor Nero soft pencils. Thread. Random 3-D objects like thumbtacks and matches. I've had a real love affair with matches.

Q: How long have you been creating collages and what made you start?
A: Hmm. I think I've been seriously collaging for about three years now. I used to make a lot of mixed media work, and as things tend to go, I started to get bored. Gluing bits of paper into my work had begun to really interest me, and so the "media" aspect faded out and collage just pushed itself in. The first three pieces (read, the last three pieces in the gallery) on my Coughing account at deviantart are where the transition happened.

Q: Are you solely an artist, or do you work in another profession?
A: I guess you could call being a student a profession. Right now I'm holding down a job in the frame shop at Michael's in Dallas. Hopefully Starbucks will call me back so I can snag another fifteen hours a week or so of work. I'm having a solo show at the Brooke Berman Gallery in Dallas in September, so there's that too, but I don't think there's going to be any collage work in that. Plus I probably won't sell anything.

Q: Do you have any formal art training?
A: There are high schools about the country called arts magnets, and I went to one of those for four years. Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts to be specific. Now I'm at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston going into my second year. So yes.

Q: Explain your favourite techniques.
A: Well, I've never studied other people's collage techniques consciously, but I have some of my own. Tearing paper in half by splitting the layers at a corner with a blade is good fun, and it extends the life of whatever paper material I'm using by two. Sometimes the fibers of the paper make a nice fuzzy texture. Along the same lines, gluing something down and then ripping it off after it's dried has become a new favorite. In the past I've made a lot of decisions about where to cut things by following the "natural" printed lines in scrap pieces of paper. Out of everything though, boredom is my favorite technique. It's the one thing that consistently pushes me to keep producing work because otherwise things just sag. I like to force myself to work differently, right down to such simple things as calling a piece done before I'm satisfied, or flipping a piece over after it's "finished" and using the back as the final product. Fun is also a well loved technique. Keeps things light and spontaneous.

Q: Describe your favourite piece ever created.
A: Most of the time I hate my work after a few weeks, so I don't guess I have one.

Q: What other artists do you admire?
A: Despite five years of art schooling, I have a decidedly pathetic knowledge of known artists. I mean, I could throw out something like Rauschenberg, but really I look at a lot of people on deviantart more than anything. *fredfree and ~spILLforward are my two main squeezes on there. I mostly live in Boston now so I actually know Fred. My friend Will (~mcjesus, ~BuddyWhite) lives in NYC and is a huge inspiration artistically and generally. Egon Schiele, Francis Bacon, Marcel Dzama, Rauschenberg, Nina Katchadourian, Cornell, and Andy Goldsworthy are top-notch, too.

Thanks Alex!