Alternative Comics Artist Statements

I've been doing a fair bit of writing this week trying to put together a brief proposal for my submissions packages. As I've mentioned in this blog a few times, most applications ask for a 500 word essay explaining one's artistic practice and relevance of the project. So I have to find a way to explain my convoluted self. It has been a long and neurotic 10 years since I started HeY APAthy! and summing it up in words (a so few none the less) is not as easy as it would be to draw it. After all that is what I do, draw things. Anyways I'm going to post another draft here today and am accepting and open (begging?) to input, editing , criticism and so on. But first here's a pretty picture to warm you up for the reading...

HEY APATHY! endless hordes of faceless denizens (Left 2001) HEY APATHY! The struggle between the individual and the machine (Right 2009) see more pics like this on the  HEY APATHY! epilogue webpage.

 

HEY APATHY! Is an ongoing artistic investigation of the metropolis, people, and the macrocosmic ramifications of our individual routines. In the earliest artworks (2001) the city is announced as a giant gear propelled by an endless sea of faceless denizens. At that time I was working out of the seclusion of a suburban basement studio and envisioned the urban landscape as a nihilistic conglomeration of misdirected commercial and superficial ideologies. Upon completion of the first series I decided to externalize my inquires and research the lives, motivations and goals of others. In order to better understand the phenomena in question, it would be necessary to conduct an unconventional interview with the habitants of the downtown core. Forsaking the introverted nature of the artist’s studio, I have since persisted in surveying the city by means of perpetual public intervention processes including outdoor murals, public exhibitions, live painting, story telling, and street performances, thus permitting unparalleled interactions with peoples from all over the world and of all walks of life. In more recent artworks the city is still explained as a giant gear, only now it is all the different kinds of people, not anonymous hordes, who fuel the machine.

The public immersion of the HEY APATHY! project has proven to be most inspirational and extremely influential to my creative practice. Intent on presenting a stern yet optimistic warning towards our future, I have perpetually adjusted my presentation and processes enabling me to connect with vast and varied audiences. The street and public performances facilitated the necessity to produce multi-media and accessible artworks including animations, video, fashion designs, and print publications. While the original works maintain the craftsmanship and intricacy associated with high art, the complete line of films and merchandise has proven invaluable in my attempts to communicate on a broad scale. Through the assimilation of both popular culture and fine art vocabularies HEY APATHY! discusses topics of great concern simultaneously intellectually provocative as well as accessible to viewers of all ages. One of my primary goals as a creator is to introduce younger audiences to an alternative stream of thought, mixing the streets with the gallery and vice versa.

In my current practice I am working more and more with online technology and social networking in order to breach the limitations of my public interventions. In hopes of extending the intimate dialogue initiated on the streets, I plan to amalgamate all facets of my artistic practice into a multi-dimensional and interactive online presence. Using live streaming, instant messaging, web comics, video games, and animations, I intend to intervene online in a similar, yet incomparably widespread, manner to that of my public performance. My drawing regiment includes daily sketches and stories, weekly drawings, and annual animations and exhibitions. The entire HEY APTHY! Experiment reads like an unconscious narrative slowly revealing the identity of the metropolis, and by means of modern communication techniques, I intend to extend the investigation an incite a dialogue that could not be achieved otherwise.

live painting performance see more at http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/

"YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!" a dialogue in the city...