Meet The Skinny Type aka Martin El Mas Flaco who creates hand-cut collages infused with fantasy
- TextAilidh Maclean
While he trained in engineering, Martin El Mas Flaco’s true passion lies in making erotic collages, which he does under the pseudonym of The Skinny Type. Brought up in a small town in Columbia, Martin now lives and works in London where he finds a steady stream of inspiration in the form of magazines and books – especially photographers’ monographs.
Using surgical tools for optimum precision, Martin crafts these collages out of paper, imagining erotically-charged scenes borne from his desires and fantasies. He plays with different representations of the male form, ranging from contemporary underwear ads with images classical sculpture. Here, alongside a selection of his collages, Martin tells us more about his work.
“My images are based on my artistic taste and a desire or fantasy. I pick something that generates a fantasy in my mind, or work out of the desire to mix two figures together. A constant in a lot of my work, though, is the desire to see someone I like interacting with himself – it’s a narcissistic fantasy from a voyeuristic perspective.
I’m quite into art and follow lots of artists, but I wouldn’t necessarily say they influence my work. There is of course a direct influence from the photographers I use, otherwise I wouldn't be interested in their photos. When I look back at my work there is of course a list of photographers I’ve used a lot, such as Slava Mogutin, Gerardo Vizmanos, Stephan Gizard, Matt Lambert, Ferry Van Der Nat and Ryan Mcginley. So they have definitely inspired me.
In the beginning, I used to cut out figures that I liked for the sheer pleasure of cutting them out, but over time I became more selective with what I try. Now, I have a more or less clear idea of the result I want before cutting so there’s a lot of preselection and comparison; scale, light and colours are critical in order to merge two or more figures into one.
It is the desire to create a fantasy by forcing images together which generate the end result, so desire should come naturally to a viewer providing he/she shares similar fantasies.”
