Bubblegum Vacation Print

Once upon a time, I was a mixed media artist that specialized in surreal & whimsical collage, digital collage, and assemblage art. In 2018, misfortune took a swipe at me as the house I was living and creating in made me severely ill, stealing from me all my creations and supplies, and leaving me with the wholly unfair trade of chronic illness. It also took from me the ability to create as I did previously, and being a person who'd been drawing as soon as they could hold a crayon, this was a gut punch. Creating is how I cope with life; it is necessary as breathing. It took a lightning strike of inspiration to find my footing and confidence again, because I felt that I had lost a great chunk of myself and had to constantly fight to keep it. While I had previously been and still am inspired by artists such as Nick Bantock, Frida Kahlo, Vincent Van Gogh, Renoir, and Magritte along with Neil Gaiman, Shakespeare, ancient Egyptian art, medieval art, Victorian engravings and alchemical emblems, my new inspiration took a more unexpected shape. I stumbled across Noel Fielding and his art, specifically his painting, deciding to try on his mode of creation for a bit as I really needed to find a new and more immediate way to express myself. As time went on I developed a style of subconscious, intuitive creation that drew on many of my previously less exercised skills. My present works are primarily done on canvas board, starting as a semi intimidating stark white space with no absolutely notion of what will appear on it. After a few quiet moments in which I may have images or colors or even nothing appear in my mind, I select my acrylic hues, and create the scene via finger painting, then detailing with brushes. What emerges almost always surprises me, even if I think I know what's coming. It's a conversation with my subconscious that has only been enriched through the passage of time. I discovered my evolving style retained my original surrealist and even whimsied aspect, yet flourished into a wild Fauvist fever dream of expressionism layered with spiritual and symbolist content in a fluid, volatile, and energetic way that my meticulous collages could never achieve. Before I started I asked my subconscious "what do I need?" and "what do I want". I paint these things as much as I work out emotions and thoughts in a complex way on the painting ground. My work describes the voice and flow of my inner self with its detailed non verbal language.