Marcel Dzama is a Canadian artist who has earnt many fans, followers, admirers, disciples and unfortunately quite a large number of copycats.
Here is Wiki's contribution:
"Dzama typically uses a muted, melancholic color palette of browns and greens, drawing from nature and army textiles. He often employs root beer base as an artistic medium. In addition to ink and watercolor drawings, Dzama also creates many collages. A recent departure for Dzama is the move into large-scale polyptychs, sculpture, and video.
Dzama is known for providing the cover art to a number of major albums, notably The Else by They Might Be Giants and Guero by Beck. His costume designs can also be seen in the music video for the Bob Dylan song "When the Deal Goes Down."
Since 1998, Dzama has been represented by the David Zwirner Gallery in New York City, at which he has had numerous solo exhibitions.[2] In 2006 he had a major exhibition at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, England, which traveled to the Centre for Contemporary Art in Glasgow, Scotland."
Dzama, although still very much a cult figure has started to see his work achieve big money, tens of thousands for some of his larger works (which is a lot for a young artist working on paper) and his work has made it into the Tate's permanent collection.
Dzama points to a lot more than just his own work however. He draws arond him a large body of other artists, from varied media, who share his homely ethos for making work.
This focuses on the artist's collective to which Dzama can be associated, 'The Royal Art Lodge,' which also contains a number of his family members. Dzama provides the album artwork for the Canadian band 'The Weakerthans' who produce beautifully crafted lyrics.
All in all, it is worth half an hour exploring the world around this incredible talent, who's work is only going to increase in value and public awareness.
p.s. on a literary note Dzama has been involved in a number of great books, including a now hard to get hold of illustrated copy of Dante's work.
