Who are you?
Kieran Madden, Melbourne based collage artist.

Give us a brief creative background, how did you come into working with collage?
Mainly I used to paint, when I moved to New York in 2008 two factors influenced my drift into making collage as my primary practice. Firstly, I found myself with very little space to paint due to the reality of living conditions in New York so began making collage, something I had only dabbled in previously. At the same time, I saw a series of shows that influenced me and in a way validated making collage to me. They were the John Baldesarri retrospective at the Met, a Dash Snow show downtown and Fred Tomaselli at Brooklyn Museum.

Why collage?
I like the intersection between collecting the source material and the art making. I have been collecting vintage items from op shops and flea markets since I was a kid. Incorporating that collecting into my work appeals to me. I feel using source material that is obscure in origin adds to a works uniqueness in this era of regurgitated digital imagery. There’s also a definite nostalgia to my work but it isn’t saying ‘look how great thing used to be’, it’s more like look at how messed up things were no wonder we are where we find ourselves today.

Describe your practice and workspace. Are you messy or are sorted cut outs your thing? Do you have rituals or particular methods of working?
I have certain unwritten rules to how I work. Elements are generally to scale, have the same perspective and colour palette, that may be due to my painting background. Considering all my work is analog that means I’m not making it that easy for myself.

In addition, my works tends to be composed of only a few elements. A busy jumble of chaotic random elements with kittens shooting lasers from their eyes in a fruit salad on the moon isn’t my thing. Ideally my finished pieces are Tableaux that aren’t a first glance clearly an assemblage of different images yet too uncanny in content to be real.

The works often have political or social messages. I started out striving to show collage could be ‘serious art’ because so much of it seemed trite. I later realised other artists had done that before, for example there’s more than a passing resemblance between some my early works and that of Martha Rosler who I wasn’t even aware of at the time.

I do have the best studio I have ever had right now so that’s great. It has with a bank of flat drawers which is a game changer when you work with paper and are a bit of a hoarder.

It’s a place of work where all my art things and image collections come together not an Instagram back drop. Sometimes a piece may come out of pfaffing around tidying up the studio then you unearth one thing and put it beside another and then it’s like, ‘oh damn look at that!’

How has your practice evolved?
My practice hasn’t changed much over the years.

Where to next?
I’d like to explore incorporating print making techniques into and scaling up my work as part of that process.

Who are your favourite artists? Where do your draw inspiration from?
I like Jimmy Turrells technique also someone like Mike McQuade is pretty great if you’re talking someone ‘collagey’.

I draw inspiration from that next book I find on the street or stumble across in an op shop that meets my standards of antiquity and obscurity.

Artist Profile: Kieran Madden