First few basic questions, who are you, what are you doing, where are you coming from?
My name is Aaron Marin, I am a artist living in the suburbs of Hudson Valley region of New York.
Why collages? What was the first thing that caught your attention and made you want to do it yourself?
Collages were an easy form of making pictures in a manner similar to photography which was my first love.
It is an excellent way of creating art from found images and re-contextualizing typography, patterns, color and photography.
I am drawn by the immediacy of the medium and how it can both be pop art, propaganda, fine art, and everything in between.
Can you tell me about your creative process?
It honestly varies and it depends on my mood, the season, weather etc.
Sometimes it’s about a piece of art that I’ve seen in a different medium. Sometimes it’s about an article I read Oldernew. Sometimes it’s music that I heard – it all depends.
I will say that I like working both in the 5 x 7 format (postcard size) to quickly work and create ideas. I definitely like working at night more than I like working during the day, I need music to work, and for the most part I like to be left alone to create work.
If I do a quick works I don’t do anything more than three at a time, and if I create some thing larger it usually takes a few days of me starting some thing and completely walking away from it and seeing if the thoughts of still there and where I need to go from it. But it’s an evolving process as I continue to evolve with this medium of art and conversation.
Your works consist of bold elements and strong usage of color creating very vibrant and strong entities. In your artworks, do you have certain things or elements that you pay more attention to? What are the key elements to yourself?
I think the most important thing about my art is that it is glorifying the black body and its affect on time and space. Sometimes I use color and sometimes I keep it black and white. My goal is to simply transmit that idea of black representation in the art world, and specifically within the medium of collage. But I would like to branch out from the simple medium and do other works under the same aims of black representation in art.
What emotions do you think your works transmit for the viewer?
I honestly have no idea and I don’t really think about it too much. The vanity and me hopes that someone likes my work and buys it, but the work is for me and me alone and if it speaks to somebody I’m happy but they don’t necessarily need to tell me that for it to have any value.
How important is the meaning of art to you? Do you want your viewers to understand or know why you made your art?
The meaning is important to be alone in the sense of creating art. I’m not really interested in how the viewer understands or knows why I made my art because at the end of the day I didn’t really make it for them. I think that goes for most artists they’re having a conversation with themselves, and sometimes people key in on aspects of the conversation, and can resonate with some of the ideas but an artist isn’t responsible for spoon feeding people.
Do you have favorite materials what to work with, or do you like the challenge of working with something new?
Are use what’s available, ideally I would like to use different materials and play with scale but that’s all economic dependent and right now I don’t have a studio. I have a small table that’s made out of an interior door and some old IKEA table legs so I’m limited to the space of my room to make art and for now that’s OK but I feel like I’m growing out of the need to make the work that I making and branch out into something different.
Can you point out any particular turning points or special moments in your career?
I think the turning point was probably last year and a whole bunch of people asked me for commissions and it was following the events, and protest, in response to the murder of George Floyd in the United States. There is a sudden surge to use black art and commercial sayings. And I found myself being asked to do editorial work that surrounded “black” topics. I was happy with finally getting paid to do work but also saddened that it took the brutal and senseless death of a defenseless man for people to notice me (and other artists). It just showed me that white people still control the art world and that’s gotta change.
What keeps you collaging? What excites you about it?
Collaging is cathartic at times. Sometimes I just like hunting for collage material flipping through old magazines reading articles social and political that echo the same ills of the world that we’re facing today. Sometimes I like looking at the old art, the old propaganda and seeing how we used to frame the world with print media, and how that is being reframe traditionally today. Art is about self exploration at the end of the day, and for me collage allows that. So I think as long as you stay curious than they were always be stuff to talk about through your art.
If you should describe your art with one word, what would it be?
Fresh!
Aaron Marin around the internet
Instagram: @neutokyo
Behance: Behance.net/griffiam255262
