by Keitija Denīze Ābele
Alana O’Herlihy is a multidisciplinary photographer, director, and mixed media artist. Always on the precipice of what’s next in pop culture and technology, she creates work for the context of the myriad digital and physical realms we live in today.
Alana is particularly fascinated by the marriage of completely new mediums with old - and thus creates through a mixture of analog and digital processes. Her work doesn’t fit the traditional mold of photography, yet she often uses captured images as a starting point: abstracting, manipulating, and maximizing them into pieces of art that capture far more than the camera can and gift the viewer with a sense of fantasy.
She was born les, where she olic school “I was only blue shoes or socks or black socks, jewelry,” she says. outside of school to of self-expression.” personal style was imaginative from the possibilities of recently found illustrations from her childhood, where she drew herself in ballet flats with bows and a top with puffy sleeves and overalls. “I guess it was intuitive at a young age,” she says.
A Los Angeles native, O’Herlihy came to New York about four years ago. She had been attending community college in L.A., stopped going and decided with her boyfriend at the time to move to New York. She applied to Parsons School of Design, got in and packed her bags for the East Coast.
It was at Parsons that O’Herlihy discovered her love of dressing up. “I had some assignment and I was like, I don’t really want to shoot anyone else and it’s always easier to shoot myself and I used to do acting classes and I’m not afraid to be in front of the camera, you know, at all,” she says over the phone in her stream of consciousness way. “So I dressed up as Jack Nicholson and I did a Jack Nicholson self-portrait series.” She eventually dropped out of Parsons, but her assignment was a hit.
It would be easy but lazy to label her practice an exercise in provocation, because that flirtation between sensuality and perversion is true to O’Herlihy’s spirit. “Those moments of sexiness and wildness—it’s a conscious decision to communicate those in the work. I’m all about exuberance and freedom.” Social media has proven to be a powerful platform for O’Herlihy, who has amassed a six-figure following of loyal fans, but the Internet is a double-edged sword for the young artist. “There is a resistance to art that’s primed by this digital age. Especially since what I do has been done before,” she explains, per haps referencing Sher man. “But, I like to think that I’m doing things dif ferently. It is a different time and I’m trying to embrace that rather than fight it. There are definitely people who think that my
work should only be experienced through a screen or in the context of the fashion world. I’m going to prove them wrong.”
The 26-year-old multimedia artist has been known for her directing and photography style chock-full of salacious camp and pixelated fantasy. She most recently directed Gigi Hadid’s Vogue March cover film, plopping the supermodel into a video game universe in which she plays levels that mix banal daily tasks with delicious adventures. O’Herlihy was also responsible for directing Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus’s “Prisoner” music video, an entertaining bloodsoaked, neo-noir tour bus tirade, and has been a longtime photographer of Bella Hadid, giving the model a glamorous grainy pinup look.
“Salacious camp and pixelated fantasy”
"Delicious adventures "
O’Herlihy’s work directly reflects her own style. Her Instagram is full of saucy looks: In some, spliced in between stills of Tony Soprano and im ages of the late Anna Nicole Smith, O’Herlihy shows off her vintage, outré outfits. In one instance, she pairs a Han nah Montana top with a strappy bathing suit. In another, she de livers a corporate getup with a bite by posing in a slick suit with white cowboy boots. O’Herlihy is a chame leon, just like her wardrobe. That ever-changing, Insta-friendly style fits her job, which O’Herlihy notes is al ways transforming. “Yesterday, I was kind of feeling down in the dumps and emo, so I just wore a man’s black suit,” she says. “To day, I’m a biker chick. That’s my character. Usually, I wake up and I’m like, ‘Okay, how am I feeling? What’s my vibe? What am I do ing today, first of all?’”
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Tietjen, A. and Tietjen, A. (2017). Meet Alana O’Herlihy, Chameleon Photographer Who Loves Playing Dress-up. [online] WWD. Available at: https:// wwd.com/eye/people/ alana-oherlihy-photographer-gigi-hadid-bella-hadid-11063908/.
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