Daniel Colen (born 1979) is an American artist based in New York. His work consists of painted sculptures appropriating low-cultural ephemera, graffiti-inspired paintings of text executed in paint, and installations.
Colen was close friends with artists Dash Snow and Ryan McGinley.[5] In 2007, Snow and Colen shredded phone books in Jeffrey Deitch’s SoHo gallery for an installation called Nest or Hamster Nest.[6][7] He was described by The Guardian as a "bad boy of post-pop New York".[8] When Snow died in 2009 of a heroin overdose, Colen was greatly impacted and said he was determined to end his own addiction.[6][8]
In his work, Secrets and Cymbals, Smoke and Scissors: My Friend Dash’s Wall in the Future (2004), Colen built an exact replica of a section of poster, photo and flyer-covered wall from friend Dash Snow's apartment.[10] Each piece of visual material was handmade and attached to a Styrofoam copy of the wall.