Artists can turn almost anything into a canvas, and Colin Hoffman prefers spray paint cans. Once they’re empty, that’s when he brings them to life.
“I was, like, I have all these cans, what do I do with all these?” Hoffman said.
In his San Bruno studio, part workshop, part wonderland, those empty cans don’t end up in the trash. They’re transformed into “Killer Cans,” brightly colored monsters with big personalities and toothy grins that are shaking up the art world.
“They kind of ward off evil spirits,” Hoffman said. “I don’t see them as evil themselves. I see myself as a protector.”
And maybe that’s not by accident. Hoffman, who served as a Marine from 1991 to 1993, was forced to retire after an injury and was later diagnosed with PTSD.
“I haven’t really discussed it with anybody for 30 years,” he said. “My kids don’t know about it. My mom and all of them, when they were alive, didn’t know about it. It’s just not something I’ve been able to talk about.”
More than 6,400 veterans died by suicide in 2022, according to the most recent figures from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Ironically, his monsters, he said, help drown out the demons in his own head.
“I realized art was kind of like a time machine, like time just disappeared, and not just time, but my problems,” Hoffman said.
What started as a hobby soon took on a life of its own. Before long, his quirky creations, which sell for about $400 each, found an audience at Veteran Comic Con, a nonprofit that uses art to help veterans with PTSD.
Constance Pleasant founded Veteran Comic Con after seeing how art therapy helped her father, a veteran, process his own experiences.
“It’s like meditation,” Pleasant said. “It really blocks out the outside world, the demons, the stresses.”
As for Hoffman, to slay his demons, he just has to build them, and after hours of building and painting, he caps it all off.
“I put this cap on,” he said with a grin, twisting the lid back onto one of his creations. “And he’s done.”