DOWNTIME w/ Brian Vu

1) Location? New York City 🇺🇸

2) Years collaging? I’ve been collaging on and off for a few years.

3) What do you love and hate about collage? Collage has a big influence on my photography, I love that I can take a lot of separate elements and inspirations and create my own. That is an approach I feel is essential to creating great artistic work.

4) Biggest influences? Recently the poet Ocean Vuong has been a large influence on me. Rupi Kaur is another inspiration - her book of poetry Milk and Honey has made me learn to love myself in a positive way.

5) Analog Vs Digital? Both analog and digital. They both are essential to the creation process for me. I tend to love experimentation and challenging myself with the ideas and tools that are outside of my comfort zone.

6) How do you spend your downtime? I spend my downtime experiencing life, consuming the knowledge around me through people. I’ve also been spending a lot of alone time to figure out my own identity.

7) Three tips for someone starting out in collage?

1. Don’t follow the rules.
2. Create your own world, use the images that represent that world.
3. Use a high quality knife!

8) Up and coming shows or projects we should know about? I’m showing some work with Galerie Henrik Springmann this summer! I’m so excited for it - it’s my most daring work which explores themes of ethics within humanity.

Links:
Instagram: @brianvu
Web: www.brian-vu.com

Artworks (top to bottom)
'Cold Ocean' digital/analog collage
'Cold Ocean II' digital/analog collage
'Dispersion' digital/analog collage
'Free Time' digital/analog collage
'Painless' digital/analog collage
'Peace' digital/analog collage
'Visible Light' digital/analog collage
'Visible Light II' digital/analog collage