I’ve never been able to fully express my creative vision with words, because so much of what I make seems to happen without them. It would be comparable to chasing after a butterfly, grabbing it for a second and taking notes on it. In a similar way, the art that I’m inspired by is also like a butterfly-- there one second and gone the next. Most art that I find great joy in I can only best describe as giving a sudden wash of feeling or energy, all there and gone in a fleeting instant.
I love to explore the reaches beyond the familiar or known. Rich, outlandish, alluring, eerie, it is one that can only be experienced deep in the depths of one’s own mind. It is my artistic goal to draw the viewer or listener of my art, through illustration or music, into another environment. As McLuhan says in The Medium is the Massage, “Media, by altering the environment, evoke in us unique rations of sense perceptions. The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act-- the way we perceive the world” (41). That being said, the artists I love tend to create larger-than-life microcosms or characters one would never find simply walking down the street. The musicians I love, Iron Maiden, Nightwish, Ghost, and Death Grips to name a few, present intensely dramatic stage personalities, inviting the audience into another universe with their music. They’re eccentric, bold, and unapologetic. To many they might seem garish or tacky. These artists make me feel alive. Maiden’s anthemic power metal bursts with heart-racing energy, Bruce Dickinson owning the stage with delightfully corny theatrics. Tarja Turunen’s angelic vocals of pre-2005 Nightwish perfectly harmonize with the symphonic metal band behind her. This group in particular is a wonderful example of how classical and metal can be combined. Papa Emeritus, chanting eerily above the crisply performed heavy metal hymns of Ghost, is pristinely haunting. Death Grips’ extreme and jagged electric experimental hip hop bumps and buzzes with life, frontman MC Ride never failing to deeply rattle the listener. My idols change, certainly. But all of these artists express something profoundly in tandem with what my creative spirit says, something I want to capture musically as well.
The women I paint are mystical, alluring, their appearances hinting at the wild and unusual lifestyles they lead. The beholder is filled with wonder and awe as they see her in the precise moment the sun hits perfectly. Each work is crafted as carefully as the pieces of music I enjoy most. The vibrancy and contrast is bumped to an extreme. Each one expresses a clear and distinctive identity. They are brave warriors, heroes, villains, temptresses, nymphs, and demons. They come from another time and place. While my music and art are two different media, the inspiration for both comes from the same world. Each medium opens a window onto it in a different way.
My artist website
Death Grips Lost Boys
Nightwish The Kinslayer
