Alex H Mack is an Australian artist who mostly works with digital collages and is part of the collective MYFANTASYHOME. He also goes by the moniker Alex Mack, after the 90s TV show. He told us ‘It’s cool how Alex Mack was just an average kid “until an accident changed her life. And since then, nothing’s been the same.” I love that idea of sudden metamorphosis, of rupture in the American suburban and the supernatural in the mundane. More than anything else, though, it had those amazing/terrible special effects where she turned into puddles of slime and slipped under doorways.

Despite being 21, I’m lucky enough to still be living in my dad’s huge federation house that was built in 1901, which has a sun room where I can spread out all the detritus of my practice. I’m a hoarder and hunt or gather objects all the time. One of the key roles my ‘studio’ plays is that of a kind of psychotic, messy, mood-board.

Fake, or a simulated depiction of reality is a key theme to my work, and I love the plastic kitsch trinkets. Here  you can see two of my favourite images in the world; lenticular holograms of dolphins on the left of the top shelf and a beautiful waterfall in the center. See also: my James-Dean-with-vine-shrine. That pastel gradient box on the left is also pretty inspirational.

So, I guess this is where half my work time and most of my leisure time is spent. Maybe I should say ‘this is where the magic happens’. My desk is eternally cluttered. Here you can see I’m watching adventure time – it’s pretty tripped out and satisfying.

Despite liking fake things, I also love growing real plants. I’m lucky that this room has a sunny disposition and I’m able to propagate succulents with ease.

My friend and I found this mushroom lamp outside this really creepy, huge house on the corner of my street. The people who live there won the lottery and started up a soup kitchen for the poor in the city, only, I think they got too old to run it because it’s disappeared now. Their place stinks whenever you walk past. I used to think it was because they had a lot of fruit and vegetables on site to transport into the soup kitchen, but now I figure it must be something more mysterious. Anyway, when I went to nick the lamp the old guy saw me and when I asked him if I could have it, he made me lay out this rotten smelling, damp persian rug he was lugging on the fence in the sun so it could dry, and then wandered off. So I guess I kind of earned it.

In the center you can see a Portland snow globe. I’ve never been – I bought it at the markets for $2.50, but I love the glitter and the relief of the city at the bottom. To the right of it is a souvenir ash-tray my friend got for me in Lebanon. It’s got these cute little rocks and ruins around the bottom.

some of Alex’s work

Foot rest (fake rock meditation), Digital collage, 2011

Ch’i (placement), Digital collage, 2011

What I Wore Today (black velvet gallerist-bitch edition), Digital collage, 2011

Orange Aid, Digital collage, 2010

Batty Boys, installation of mortadella4eva and burgerboi. Two transparencies mounted on holographic-film wrapped frames and magnified by a lenticular plastic sheet, leaning on opaque polyurethane and back-lit by a 14 watt fluorescent light, resting on a white-painted shelf of MDF.
Dimensions variable, 2010

Tower, digital collage for MYFANTASYHOME, 2010

www.flickr.com/yuriyonson
alex-h-mack.tumblr.com

This entry was tagged as alex h mack, digital collage, in the studio.