If you meet someone new, and begin to engage in conversation, the first question they ask is generally about your work. As an American living in Prague, Czech Republic the question is generally “What are you doing here?”. It’s a simple question really, but that doesn’t mean it has a simple answer. In the past I’ve meandered through a variety of answers. Possible answers could include. My heritage, I run e-commerce sites, I’m a Drawing and Visual Culture instructor at a local college, I’m a painter, and my most dreaded answer, I’m an artist.
So why do I hate saying I’m an artist? It’s most likely why you’d imagine. I hate the stereotypes surrounding the artist. The wandering Bohemian (ironically I actually live in Bohemia), The arrogant drunk who flies into a rage (ala Jackson Pollock), or the misunderstood tortured soul slaving away on a masterpiece that the world isn’t ready to accept. Do I fit theses stereotypes? The Answer is. I don’t really care. And that’s the same way I make my art. Everything you find on this site is a flash of inspiration which I try to capture and get onto canvas as soon as possible. That’s it. I never censor myself or my ideas. If something hits me the right way then I want to paint it. This could be a series of paintings about internet memes, or it could be paintings of video games I played when I was little, it could be sketches of webcam girls in a chatroom, or Sarah Palin with a third eye. I carry a small pocket recorder everywhere I go and I record my ideas. I still have hundreds of paintings that are on a list to be made. They are simple one line sentences that pop into my head that include. Jesus Christ riding a BMX bike, Paintings of Homosexuality found in Nature, or A Plesiosaur in Lake Champlain. I get the idea, I record it, then I paint it. It’s probably more similar to the way aspiring writers capture and create works than painters, but whatever, that’s how I do it. I can’t go anywhere without seeing paintings everywhere. I could be in a McDonalds, Playing Counterstrike, or watching Judge Judy. When I see a painting in my head, I know it. That’s why I think my work fits into the blog format quite well. It’s a time line of my ideas, attitudes, humor, and views.
In the past I’ve encountered marginal success with a series of video game paintings. I sold all of them quickly and so I kept producing them. But then, I just got bored with it. I had so many other ideas I knew it was time to move on. So I did. And that was that. Some could accuse me of lacking focus because my ideas bounce around like ping pong balls in my head. But I’m very focused, it’s just that my focus changes all the time I know that I will never run out of ideas of “What to paint”, and so I will keep producing. I make paintings for the Internet, this is my gallery, and you are my audience. If you like it, then great, if I offend you then I don’t really care. This is my story and I’m sticking to it.
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To all of you who have supported my work throughout the years a great big thank you! Love you guys!
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