By ALISON ROWE | Special to the Palisadian-Post
The cover of the 2018 Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce Business Directory features an eye-catching image of the famed bell tower at Palisades Charter Elementary School.
Pared down to its graphic essentials, the tower rises above the tree canopy, its distinctive tile work crisp and geometric.
The artist is Palisades Charter High School graduate Tom Hofer, former art director of the Palisadian-Post, now enjoying a similar position at the monthly Larchmont Chronicle.
He uses collage to create fresh views of Pacific Palisades and its people.
Hofer’s first collage piece was a large-scale version of the matchbook cover for the House of Lee restaurant (today, of course, Pearl Dragon).
More matchbook covers followed as Hofer honed his distinctive style and began experimenting with the wider subject matter of pulp fiction covers and posters for imagined B-movies.
The Palisadian pieces riff on reference photos taken by Hofer—one even centers on the street sign for Via De La Paz—rendered in craft papers on archival, acid-free paper. Sometimes the papers are exotic in origin, such as Japanese rice paper, bamboo and banana.
Family also makes an appearance, with images of the Hofer brothers growing up and playing music.
Appropriately for someone who started his work with found imagery, Hofer is about to start work on a new series based on a series of old and forgotten slides.
You can see examples of Hofer’s work at Baby Blues BBQ on Lincoln in Venice or go to rawartists.org/collagetom.
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