Viper Sisters and The House of The Holy!!!!
2012
Using digital and handmade techniques, ADRIEAN KOLERIC assembles collages from 1950s publications like Mechanix Illustrated and
Life, Action Comics from the 1970s, and images of romantic landscapes and Nicholas Cage's head culled from the Internet. His collages are fantasy landscapes
that offer an escape from hum-drum reality. Adriean is interested in
democratic modes of disseminating art, including Flickr, Tumblr and street art. His most recent collage series, The Viper Sisters and The Sinister Reasoning of Abstracta!!!!, is available for purchase
as at Blurb.com, an online, self-publishing platform. He has just
completed his first album cover for the Edmonton-based, electronic band Zebra Pulse. Adriean lives and works in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
OtherPeoplesPixels: Who are the Viper Sisters!!!!? How did the series of collages begin?
Adriean Koleric: The Viper Sisters!!!!
came about around Christmas of 2012. I was pretty burnt out at the time
and kept having this urge to work on a series of collages that were
more scaled down than what I had been doing. I was after a somewhat punk
vibe. I came up with the name first. I wanted a name that could easily
have been a band’s name in the early punk movements of the 70’s. I
jotted down the name The Viper Sisters!!!! and rattled off the
first of 60-plus panels in minutes. It was like a three-chord
composition. The three chords were character, landscape and accessory.
In all honesty, this was supposed to be a one-off joke series for me to
giggle about to myself. But it was pretty addictive, especially with the
convoluted, Smiths-esque titles. They only enhance the experience and humor for me.
I used a number of social media outlets when posting the Sisters series. The interest especially began to grow on Flickr.
From there, they began to pop up on Tumblr sites, blogs, etc. I
received a lot of comments asking where the sisters were going next, who
exactly are they represented, why they carried the head of Nicolas Cage.
As the series progressed, people began to follow each panel as though
each one was a continuation of the last. But in reality, it was one
battle scene of destruction after another. These are awful characters
who have no respect for life. They don’t experience remorse. Yet,
somehow, viewers connected with them. I’m guessing it comes down to the
escapist avenue they provide from our daily grind. It was a loose series
for me that, of all the work I’ve done, reached the most people.
Several galleries even approached me to show the pieces which still
makes me chuckle a bit.
OPP: Did you turn them down? Are you more
interested in disseminating work through the internet than through the gallery
system?
AK: I did accept one of the gallery shows. If I’m asked, then that shows me there’s genuine interest in the work. But I hate the process of writing proposals—nine times out of 10 they are full of shit—just to appease a selection committee. Plus I can’t stand meetings, especially art-related ones. They go nowhere and are boring as hell. If I wanted a life like that, I’d have been an accountant.
I’m more interested in producing, putting it
out there and moving on. If someone wants to sit there and dismantle my work,
then have at it. Once it’s posted, it’s no longer mine.
OPP: You've worked in both digital and cut-paste collage. Can you talk about the differences in these methods?
AK: For me, digital is a helluva lot easier in terms of throwing a composition together. The ability to adjust the scale and tone of images and to duplicate individual components makes it more controllable than traditional cut-paste. The process is always easier, but it’s harder to walk away from the piece at the end. I just want to keep fiddling with add-ons, layers, etc. Cut-paste is a much slower and more involved process. I develop more of a relationship with the piece because I spend the majority of time flipping through pages, cutting, tossing, ripping . . . crying. I have an idea in my head, and then I have to treasure-hunt for the clippings that will help me achieve the vision. I’m always relying on the hope that I will come across that magical image which will take me to my rainbow land. It’s a damn lottery most of the time! I also find it more satisfying at the end because I am physically holding the finished product in my hands as opposed to messing about with a printer. It makes the hassle worth it.
OPP: In another creative life, you were a furniture designer.
What made you shift from the three-dimensional to the two-dimensional?
AK: My last furniture piece was a lamp called MONSTER. This piece was specifically designed to cater to the designer toy
community and it looked like an over-sized toy with an "eye" for a lens
and clean surfaces that could be a platform for artists to interpret as
they saw fit. I wanted to create a vehicle that would allow me to
collaborate with artists that I had been following at the time. So once I
hooked up with guys like Chad Kouri and Motomichi Nakamura,
the two-dimensional bug hit me hard—especially collage, a medium I
hadn’t touched since I was a teen. I literally dropped all interest in
furniture design and haven’t gone back since. That was eight years ago.
OPP: What kinds of collage did you make as a teenager?
AK:
My collages back then were pretty crude. They were mostly made up of
content from magazines I got in movie theaters as well as old Action Comics.
I was fascinated by Superman, who was the primary character used in
these collages. In most cases, he was in a dialogue with other popular
icons of the day, including RoboCop, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character from Commando and Stallone. It was very teenage boy-masculine. The dialogue was awful. Arguments over chocolate milk were about as intelligent as it got.
OPP: How does your training in design influence your collage work?
AK:
It makes me focus more on aesthetics rather than concept. The latter
has never been a priority for me and always has a danger of skewing the
viewers' perceptions. I want viewers to think for themselves. Ever ask a
writer to draw out his/her book in order to explain it to you? Sounds
silly doesn’t it?
Digital collage
OPP: Clearly, you are a Star Wars fan, as evidenced by your 2009 solo show Herd, featuring an army of modified and decorated imperial walkers, your series Star Wars Galaxy 5 TOPPS (2010), and all the TIE fighters, X-Wing fighters and storm troopers that populate your collages. Is fandom an important part of your work?
AK: The funny thing is that I’m not that big of a Star Wars fan. I don’t even own a single DVD copy!!
OPP: Wow! I’m actually shocked. I was certain you were a fan. What is it about Star Wars
that makes it come up over and over again in your work? How much are
you counting on the viewer to recognize these iconic images?
AK:
For me it was all about the iconic imagery that I wanted to
reinterpret. I liked the idea of taking a well-known image and making
viewers look at it in a completely different way. It’s also a way to
draw in viewers by providing a sense of familiarity. They recognize a
few items, feel comfortable enough to enter, but then realize they are
in another place. From there, I hope the thought process shifts and
sheds a new light on what was once old and true to them.
2012
Paper on Plywood
8" x 12"
OPP: Talk about the recurring visual motif of absent human
heads. Sometimes the heads are replaced with with cameras, boxes,
furniture, and other times, the figures are simply headless or the faces
are erased. There are a lot of examples in your Sketch Card Set (2012) and in your series Paper vs. Wood (2011-13). In The Life and Times of B.Sherman
(2009-2011), the heads are mostly replaced with pieces of furniture you
yourself designed and parts of machines that I don't recognize. How do
you think about these replacement "heads"?
AK: It really
started with the B.Sherman series. I wanted to somehow preserve the work
I did as a furniture designer. B.Sherman is my direct connection to my
furniture design past. His ‘head’ is actually the very first piece I designed.
At the time it was called "Sherman" but was later renamed "Bento." I
had a string of attachments to the piece and wanted to somehow keep it
alive in my work. It was a way of creating a self-portrait, and it
allowed me to travel through each piece. It sounds hokey, but it really
is about escapism for me. We all want that moment to change our heads
and just go elsewhere for awhile.
OPP: Escapism generally
has a negative connotation, as if it is solely a function of a character
flaw in people who have no sense of reality or no skills at dealing
with the real world. But I see it more as continuum of healthy and
unhealthy behaviors. The desire to escape is a natural human impulse
that we all experience at one time or another. In fact, I think fine art
is as much a part of the escapism continuum as mass-media culture. What
do you think?
AK: For me, art is entertainment.
Entertainment is there to take us away from the daily bull. That is
escapism. Well to me it is. Anyone who thinks escapism has a negative
connotation is either a liar or the most dry person out there. We need
to recharge ourselves every now and then. I like the idea that right
now, some guy in his cubicle is reading this interview and checking out
my stuff. I’ve given him a moment in his 9-5 drab day to loosen up. I,
myself, have the skills to deal with the real world, but, man, there are
days when I could care less.
To view more of Adriean's work, please visit thinkitem.com.