We’ve been longtime fans of artist Kalen Hollomon’s work. The artist, who lives in Chinatown, stumbled upon Instagram a couple of years ago, and has used the platform to experiment in ways that have lent him a sizable audience, even if he is wary of being categorized as being someone who works strictly within the medium of social media. SEEN asked Hollomon to make a series of collages for us exclusively, one that riffed more on art (he’s been known to collaborate with more fashion-friendly magazines, like Vogue), but that used his same playful brushstrokes and sense of imagery.
Of late, Instagram’s guidelines have been a topic of conversation in the art scene. Accounts have been deleted. Iconic or noteworthy paintings or photographs by famous artists have been taken down for nudity or other reasons. We asked Hollomon his thoughts on the matter: “I joined maybe three or four years ago, and my first account was shut down. I was posting a lot of little drawings and collage drawings — and they were pretty sexual. I started to feel momentum — and then the account was shut down. You couldn’t even sign onto Instagram on my phone for six months. It is so ridiculous, with the guidelines, with which people get kicked off and which images get deleted. But there also has to be a line drawn — if there wasn’t, it would turn into the filthiest, most disgusting thing. People would post the foulest stuff. It would be so gross. It would be Craigslist times a million. So I do feel like a line has to be drawn. But it’s a little strict. For now, it’s kind of fun to figure out where the line is and try to try and nudge it a little bit. We all choose to be on Instagram and we know what the rules are. So I try to get that point across without being so crude visually.”