all my friends are dead (in memory of Ben Frost). Artwork

Mark Jason Kemp talking about his work "Sentences". A collection of works that explore my thoughts, fears, failures and regrets. My addictions, paranoia, psychosis, and the death of my two best friends. one of which I witnessed being tortured and executed and one who just lost his way and who's life I could of saved, but didn't. In essence it's ten years overdue, the above conditions being mostly to blame, that and losing the use of my right arm. However, I have now overcome most of the above and have found a new art style to embrace whilst at the same time, readjusting myself to be solely left-handed. The work was done in fine pastel, pencils, charcoal and collage, on a very small scale and highly realistic. The pieces were then scanned, manipulated and re-worked into multiple time lapse stills using my "new best friend" the computer. This process I find, as well as being quite rare, not only fuses both the traditional and the modern, but it also allows me to take-apart a still image, then re-assemble it many times giving the piece a more defined timeline. So by introducing both a beginning and an end, neither of which are absolute, the image then ca, more easily convey such things as consequence reason and circumstance. what's left at the end is a brief hint at a very personal story, a story that I mostly don't want to become public knowledge, but is there for all to see. I do this by leaving both the image and title, just ambiguous or obscure enough, so as to force the imagination of the viewer to add the final touches, by mentally joining the dots. Polaroids... The reason I chose the polaroid format was that when my best friend became addicted to crack, he was that far gone that he resorted to breaking into my house and stealing various things. One of which was a case belonging to me, containing all the photographs that I had taken. Not only did I lose my photos, I lost three years worth of Artwork and memories. Work documenting almost every day of my downward spiral, from thoughts to mad rants to daubs in blood and piss, these being the only testement to how low I'd become and would have served as a stern warning to anyone considering substance abuse. My best friend however, realising he'd taken nothing he could exchange for crack and so burnt the lot in a bonfire not two hundred yards from my house, maybe he tried smoking them. people who see my work...