About Alternate Histories

Thanks for visiting Alternate Histories! I'm Matthew Buchholz (He/Him) and this is what I do. I grew up in Tucson, AZ, graduated from NYU, lived in Brooklyn for years and moved to Pittsburgh in 2008. I now combine my love of history and bad sci-fi movies into my art. 

My work began with a show at Wildcard in 2010, a great store in Pittsburgh where I had the inspiration to photoshop a gigantic monster into an old engraving of the city. Since then I've expanded with different cities, holiday & greeting cards, original works and more, all taking historic images and adding in something from a pop culture sci-fi background.

I like to think that my work remakes and comments on history by incorporating shared pop-culture memories into visual records of the past. At times it can seem like there’s no distinction between “true” history and a collective pop history. Science fiction takes this one step further by introducing elements of otherness that we project onto our own social fears and concerns. I’m remaking history…with monsters and robots!

I've been fortunate enough to be able to travel to different cities selling my wares, and my work was recently featured as part of the Futur Anterieur show at the agnes b. galerie du jour in Paris.

Each piece starts with the original image. I do a lot of online and flea market research to find interesting pieces, then I look for some monster, robot, alien or other creature that fits the style of the piece. I do all this in playing with my dog Otis and listening to sixties soul music. 
If you'd like to read more about me and my work, here's a few press links:

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