An upside down world of inverted values, of real fakes and fake facts. High and low coalescing in singular multi-images.
Hybrids and visual glitches. The end of innocence and the pollution of the real.
A corrupted file. Cultural vandalism and a mistrust of institutions.
A search for footing in the quicksand of the present. A cross-pollinated newsfeed.
Pornography. An abuse of power. A call for rebellion.
A push and pull between the sacred and the profane, between Beauty and the Beast.
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The impulse to make work allows me to feed on, rather than be consumed by my concern for wider global issues. The relative futility of individual action to effect change on a broader level can create a sort of paralysis. Art at least can act as a catalyst for conversation: A personal dialogue exploring my interests, and a wider one with the public.
After studying sculpture, I worked briefly as a free-lance toy designer. I continue to be interested in the confluence between art and popular culture, and the contrast between the rarefied production of art objects compared to the mass production of toys and consumer products. I often use familiar iconography in my work precisely because of its universality. The effect of globalism is a worldwide recognition of pervasive brands, whose symbols are ubiquitous and lexicon known to everyone.
I am drawn to challenging assumed hierarchies between “art” and “pop culture”. Drawing from the vitality and power of tribal art and the banal objects of pop culture, I try to compress these apparently opposing elements into works of meaning and humour. The profound loses depth without the banal. The banal gains meaning in relation to the sublime. By colliding elements from these disparate worlds, I invite us to question our perceived values and prejudices.
My “World of Pisney” blurs lines by merging Disney figures with Picasso paintings. Cartoon imagery consumes everything within its plastic visual language, as did Picasso – reinventing the world in his vision. I love this symbiosis. Language both exploding into new forms, and imploding into a reduced lexicon and shorthand.
“Eclectomania” explores how primitive art became a powerful influence among European artists who formed an avant-garde in the development of modern art and on the other hand how colonisation took with it ideas and artefacts, and in return filled the vacuum left behind with its own ideologies and consumeristic influences.
