Corey Olsen Turns the Mundane into Art with 'Garage Still Lives'

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Corey Olsen Turns the Mundane into Art with 'Garage Still Lives'

The photographer's latest project has him finding the magic of rusted paint rollers, Pokémon cards, and more.

Corey Olsen's work has been featured on VICE before, when we highlighted his intentionally bland depictions of every day life in a small fishing town. He celebrates disposable culture like no one else, a theme that has manifested itself again in Corey's new seriesGarage Still Lives,where he finds the magic of rusted paint rollers, Pokémon cards, and more—making them into thoughtful compositions. The project will be shown at the artist's first solo exhibition January 9 at Manhattan's Julie Saul Gallery along with Zeke Berkman's early still life work. VICE got an exclusive premier of Olsen's favorite selects below along with a statement from our pal David Brandon Geeting:

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Somewhere among a tedious hardware store display window, a five-year-old's depiction of his parent's garage, and the sort of "do-what-you-can-with-what-you-have'"installation art of the moment are Corey Olsen's Garage Still Lifes . A self-described "time capsule" filled with "a bunch of crap that was meant to make sense together but doesn't to an outsider," Olsen's garage yields images that are unconcerned with utilitarian order. On the contrary, the pictures beam with crafty solutions, mischievous combinations, and the type of nostalgia that makes you smirk more than jerk a tear. Rusted paint rollers balanced on a green grate, a Pokémon card roped tightly to an ancient can of gasoline, a sheet of graph paper sprinkled with fuses and frustratingly small parts that only your dad would understand—these relationships won't subsist and they weren't meant to. But for the camera, Olsen's curiously constructed, free-thinking, wisecracking exhibition thrives in full color. - David Brandon Geeting

Garage Still Lives by Corey Olsen will have its opening reception Saturday, January 9 from 5 to 7 PM at Julie Saul Gallery, 535 W 22nd St # 6F, New York

You can view more of his work here.

A monograph of the project is available from Silent Sound Books, a new publishing company run by photographer Coley Brown.