Artist Statement

Quick Version

Wednesday October 19, 2022

My work is predicated on a mix of Surrealism, Absurdism, and Psychedelia. My interests and aesthetic stem from childhood obsessions with Pee-wee’s Playhouse, Jim Henson’s The Muppet Show, Mel Brooks Movies, Weird AL Yankovich, and Hippie Culture.

Not So Quick Version

Thursday, January 28, 2021

In the twenty-first century it is a full-time occupation to weed out bullshit from fact and reason. We are constantly bombarded by half-truths, scams, ulterior motives and advertisements disguised as news. Vigilant cynicism is one’s only defense against being taken as a rube. Because of this I attempt to approach all aspects of life through lens of scientific reason. In many ways the cynicism we are forced to exercise in refraining from clicking on the advert for that new vacuum cleaner is much like the reductionism which came to prominence during the Age of Enlightenment. In the eighteenth century, during the Enlightenment, excessive logic, order, and rationality permeated culture in both Britain and America. This had an unintentional side-effect. People needed a release and began to reject logic and order. They turned toward Absurdism and nonsense for entertainment.

Like the Absurdists of the eighteenth century, my art is a response to the excessive logic needed to thrive in our time. I am interested in Absurdism, Surrealism, and Psychodelia: disconnections from the seriousness of life. The seeds of these interests, both conceptual and aesthetic, were planted in me before the age of six through my obsessions with both Jim Henson’s The Muppet Show and the design and art of Wayne White for Paul Rubin’s Pee-wee’s Playhouse. The sensibilities these programs instilled in me were reinforced and cultivated both consciously and unconsciously through similar interests and themes I gravitated towards throughout my life and artistic practice. My identity and oeuvre were molded by those children’s entertainment programs in the mid 1980’s. Absurdism and it’s humor are not regressive -  Instead I see them as the natural result of a life lived through adherence to reason, much like those who rejected the strictness of enlightenment in favor of playfulness and nonsense.