Comic Abstraction: one artist's journey into vision and sound.

Growing up in northern Michigan in a rural county, I was faced with entertaining myself most of the time. I had a plethora of toys to chose from to pass the time: Star Wars figures and vehicles, Legos, Tinker Toys, Dominoes and other assorted play sets. Even with all of these fancy toys at my disposal, with the exception of the Star Wars figures, I preferred to model things with a package of chocolate colored oil clay from the local grocery store. At an early age I had aspirations to be a paleontologist; dinosaurs were my first love and I knew how to pronounce all the names correctly. One Christmas, I was given a large volume that lavishly illustrated these ancient beasts in great detail. I sat for hours with that book and my oil clay, picking out a favorite “saur” and modeling it in exact detail from the illustrations. The sensation that I felt creating those models is the same sensation I get when I paint or draw. According to Franz Boas in his book “Primitive Art,” all people have an aesthetic sense and art exists in every culture. Therefor art is a basic human impulse, and painting is my response to this. The “Horn Head” series of paintings and mixed media drawings are a set of quirky machines, characters and environments that reflect my interest in creating my own fictional world. The images are developed from real life objects and popular culture: tea cups, ice cream cones, vacuum cleaners, rocket ships, musical instruments, cartoon imagery and other assorted machinery. They then mutate into imagery that serves a specific function in my alternate universe. I consider myself a kind of mad scientist, and these are manifestations of my experience in a chaotic world.

This series has been developing over the past 19 years and has evolved in quite a few ways. There was a period when I didn't believe my machine creations would ever have eyes or cartoon features. I thought at the time that was passe, or at least that I couldn't compete with my hero's Phillip Guston, Barry Mcgee, Jim Houser or Margaret Kilgalllen. But, that was the culture and imagery that I most identified with strongly. Especially from all of the skateboard graphics I had admired as a kid and the fact I am still obsessed with them to this day. In turn I have a small skateboard company that I run called Gallery that also features my artwork.

My other passion that informs my work is music. I consider myself both a Jazz and Punk aficionado, but my tastes range the gambit. I have a soft spot for vinyl and can be found listening to records to find inspiration for images in the series. I have been attributing my work to artists (mostly musicians) for almost 10 years now. This for me acts as both a history lesson for the viewer and a visual response to the music I am playing in the studio while I create my work. This tradition was borrowed from Composer/musicians like Anthony Braxton and Ken Vandermark. I felt that my universe was a visual response to their flights in the realm of sound.

Hopefully this has given you a small glimpse into my process and why I create. More posts will be following soon. Please feel free to email me about my work and take a look through the store for the very affordable mini works series. Thanks for stopping by.

#modernart #technique