Stuff by Camco

Cameron Colan aka CamCo was born in Dallas, Texas in 1993. He lives and works in New York City.

Colan’s cognition of contemporary art and media movements began at a very young age, looking at mixed media works of his grandfather who came to America from Italy but passed before Colan was born. He furthered his understanding of how to create, contort, and communicate different ideas with a degree in Consumer Psychology that led him to a day-time profession firmly focused using the moment as material. 

Fostering a strong instinct for creative currents and cultural movements, the artist started his career in advertising. Over the first 7 years of living in New York City, Colan was brought on to help some of the most groundbreaking media and marketing companies do award-winning work, and when he wasn’t doing that he was honing his personal artistic vision.

The autodidactic artist draws his inspiration from actively question his everyday experience as well as from studying the "why's" of contemporary art giants such as Julie Mehretu, Kieth Tyson, Charline Von Heyl, Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Miles Davis, George Condo, Donald Judd, Brian Eno, and Patti Smith. 

He is on a constant journey to deepen his understanding of the human necessity to create; in search of a universal underlying creative process that can empower the viewer to push their personal creative journey forward in hopes that it will bring them closer to themselves and eventually each other.  He has turned thinking on this theory into a monthly New York City writer’s round called “In Spite of Ourselves”,  where with the help of his team, weave together a tapestry of poets, musicians, comedians & storytellers to share their work openly with a crowd that by the end of the show becomes a community.

Colan’s work focuses on the intersection of our lived experience and the way it is told back to us, using totems like chairs, windows and balloons as both a tactical tool and symbolic representation of the cyclical nature of being human. Aiming to carve through thoughts with poetry, work through the feelings he notices around new ideas with image creation and relish the moment they all fuse together. 

Chairs are a tribute to the experience of sitting with another’s perspective as the final act of the creative process. Additionally the idea that balloons do not function without our breath has always fascinated me. He uses them as an approachable yet fragile vessel to view complex situations through. Colan strives to stay open to others in heart and mind, process and space; aiming to inspire others to keep thinking. To keep floating. To keep creating.