The Human Centerpiece, and other new work

Hey all, here's a story of a show I was in a few months back.

I was invited by Atlanta's Beep Beep Gallery to participate ALCHEMY, a show described by the gallery as:

" A group show consisting of work created on or applied to wood triangles. These triangles were hand-cut by Beep Beep and are in 3 sizes: small, medium, and large. These works will then be displayed in a series of patterns and arranged throughout the gallery, the ultimate alignment of which will distill into either an Elixir of Life, The Universal Solvent, or if our energies are properly harnessed, piles and piles of gold."

The show was definitely golden, essentially constituting a who's-who of young Atlanta artists, including Dorothy Stucki, Sam Parker, Allen Taylor, Kelly Cloninger, Sanithna Phansavanh, Kelly McKernan, Mike Germon, Chelsea Raflo, PLF, Sean Abrahams, Emily Maxwell, Jason Travis, Brandi Supra, Joy Phrasavath, Romy Aura Maloon, Jason Kofke, Chris Chambers and more. The place was packed out like crazy!

I grabbed a large and a small triangle, filed the edges smooth, and set to work. For the smaller triangle, I set up a transfer of an image of Mount Fuji: 

"Rainstorm Below the Summit" 2011

The main piece I created for the show is a continuation of my digital work. I decided to make something very crass, erotic, and dense:

"The Human Centerpiece" 2011

My favorite part has got to be Mickey Mouse engaging the posterior of a faceless, polka dot dress-wearing young lady:

#1 among my luckiest, happiest accidents in all of these collages

The "SKEET SKEET SKEET" guy on the left edge of the triangle shooting semen out of his shotgun gets a very honorable mention, too. I think that graphic provided the impetus for the entire project, really.

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Much more recently I've been working on a huge collage for Young Foxy and Free's Spring issue. It's the most labor-intense collage yet, and I'm prouder and prouder of it the more I work on it. While I can't show you the whole thing, I will show you a section:

About 1/6 of the total collage. It's nuts!

I'm especially fond of this odd creature I created early in the process, the Alien Goose of Love, which I assembled, abandoned, and then revived after a time. What I like best about him is his wackiness:

"The Alien Goose of Love" 2012

My openess to bring more disparate parts together in these collages is exciting because for me it signals a gradual unification of my pixel work and my intense, hand drawn, non-pixel work.

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While mending my broken foot, I've largely been restricted my output to sketching in my sketchpad and collaging on the computer, which has given me ample opportunity to pursue a series of collages I've been thinking about for a little while. I call them the Atomic Marilyns, and they're part of a larger project centering on Marilyn Monroe that Iv'e been working on in preparation for a solo show in August. This particular set of collages is very much influenced by a Dali painting I saw at the High around this time last year during their spectacular Dali show:

Salvador Dali "The Maximum Speed of Raphael's Madonna" 1954

Here's one of the first dozen Atomic Marilyns I've made:

"Gold Marilyn 01" 2012

The idea of the overwhelming amount of nothingness comprising matter has always fascinated me, as has the overwhelming amount of nothingness comprising life. Furthermore, when one's life becomes an almost-possession of the public, how much more is that life-nothingness magnified or even amplified? This thought just occurred to me, but it makes the Atomic Marilyns all the more attractive as a project. Existentialism, celebrity, life, death, and, as always, the problem of seeing!

Have an excellent weekend, whichever day you may read this on!