Who the Hell is Red?
“We all know art is hard, young artists gotta starve”
— Cursive
I was told once that it “must be nice that you feel comfortable calling yourself and artist, I wish I could say that”. I thought that was strange. People lie in these sorts of things, and talk about how rewarding this is. There is nothing rewarding about calling yourself an artist. It makes no money for one, and if we are going to be realistic that matters. It opens you up to intense judgement both in your ideas and your skills. Its an existence mired in doubt, its a never ending question “Am I good, or am I full of shit?”.
I dont do this for fun, or for money, or for fame. I do this because if I didnt than I wouldnt do anything.
“Good taste is as tiring as good company”
— Francis Picabia
My audience isnt the wealthy collector. I was told early in my career that the job consisted of a good amount of kissing up to elitist collectors, because who else buys art?
We all have to eat, and of course I sell work, but I believe that to love any art and all art is to be purely human. Distilled away from all our pretentions of greatness and civilization and you are left with self expression as one of a short list of defining characteristics of humans. Before we developed set language we were creating images on the walls of places we called home. Art is the heritage of our species. Art should be accessible to anyone who wants it.
Creating an atmosphere of elitism sterilizes the work. Over commodification makes art just that, a commodity. I dont want to make commodities, I want to connect with people.
“Reality exists somewhere, but we translate it into our own language”
— Zdzislaw Beksinski
Its not solipsism to acknowledge that our entire world view is held in the space between our ears. The phaneron is the only universe you dwell in, and all else about you is a projection inside based on the senses you were given when you came to this place we call existence. Therefore reality is what you make of it. I think there are, always have been and always will be, occult aspects to reality, which people struggle with. I think the individual headspace of every person who has ever been, is, or will be, hides within it a massive well, which has no bottom, and within which truths both personal and empirical may be found. This is why I call myself a surrealist, there is a greater reality which exists all around us, independent of human needs of consumption, philosophies and political theories, a greater understanding of everything which we can perceive but have trouble communicating to one another. I think that art, whether it be visual, auditory, or experiential, is the attempt to translate that greater knowing. The greater fear, the greater love, the greater ecstasy, and the greater violence. Surrealism acknowledges the strange places that attempted translation can take us.