Kjelshus Collins
Biography
Kjelshus Collins is an Oklahoma-born artist working in traditional printmaking and sculpture. Kjelshus attended Oklahoma State University earning a BFA and a BA in Art History. He spent much of his childhood with his parents selling their art around the country. Never one to focus on one art form, he often combines two different methods to create one piece, like printmaking with mold making to create a figurative piece in the form of a packaged toy. Kjelshus now lives in New Orleans and is working towards his MFA at the University of New Orleans.
Artist Statement
I love a nice, well-made object, and I love old objects of mysterious provenance. I am familiar with archaeology. I have been in the West Asian desert, in those trenches, removing bucket after bucket of dirt just to find pottery sherds. It’s pretty fantastic to find what's left of once great civilizations. I can almost feel the stories emanating from these items. I love junk shops, souks, bazaars, dig sites, museums, art theft, forgeries, bootlegs, curio cabinets, and toy stores. I’m fascinated with the human obsession with things. And then, I have always liked things like mysticism and prehistory, Star Wars and Vic’s Novelty, consumerism and mass production. All of these things I can brew together in a world-building venture through a self-stylized type of pop-brut-faux-kitsch.
I am both a sculptor and a printmaker—I enjoy duality in art. My printwork may be deemed as a satirical yarn on society and the sculptures are the artifacts of this metafictional society. These drastically different genres will often find themselves combined in my world; you take the casting and you take the printing and it becomes a whole new thing. I bet you can run a small civilization with some ceramics, molds, and a printing press. (Just wait, I am sure an arcane gift shop will open up in the future.)
Clay, plastics, and paper are my mediums. Toys, pottery, zines, and other sundries are my subjects. Cargo cults are my muse. While you peruse my suites, keep all of this esotericism in mind and enjoy some late-stage capitalism.
@howaitogoburin and @killajayzeus
Kjelshus's work was featured in our exhibition, Hodge Podge, October 2017 - January 2018, and in our Fall 2018 Group Exhibition, September - November, 2018.
