Bryan Olson

Wandering around the interwebs I sometimes find artists I really don’t know much about, and can’t find out much about. That doesn’t keep me from enjoying their work.

Bryan Olson is one of those artists. He does hand-made/ mixed-media collage using a variety of vintage and contemporary sources.

Apparently he is 27, lives in North Carolina, and is also a musician. He describes his work variously as “mixed media collage landscapes”, “vintage surreal sci-fi”, and  “hand-cut ultrastructures”. That’s what I’ve gleaned from the tags on Glass Planet, his tumblr account, anyways.

Vaguely reminiscent of futurist & suprematist approaches to collage, even hints of Berlin Dada – but ultimately this kind of collage always evokes other collage, how can it not? If you use vintage engravings it looks like Max Ernst, if you use magazine photos it looks like Hannah Hoch. Does it even matter? Not really.

Olson’s work does seem familiar. I’m not sure if he’s one of those people whose work I’ve seen reshared on countless tumblr and image aggregate sites for years, or if he’s new at this. I do like his work quite a bit, though, and ultimately that’s all that matters.