The Pleasure Passes [The Headache Remains] Print

Born Scott Aaron Stine, I employ the pseudonym of "Mortimer Dempsey" as I prefer to keep my various, cross-media endeavors as separate entities. I have worked as a professional freelancer during the last twenty-six years, and am currently soliciting for work, primarily book or CD covers. Born in 1968, I am a native inhabitant of the Pacific Northwest who currently resides in Everett, Washington. My primary influence is traditional surrealism. (I am heavily influenced by the output of such artists as Francis Bacon, Marcel Duchamp, Georges Bataille, Hans Bellmer, Max Ernst, and the like.) I am a misanthropic, anti-theistic secular humanist. I am an over-the-hill punk-rocker, rabid book collector and science geek. I have always been obsessed with pre-1980s nostalgia, particularly with 1950s-1970s low-brow pop culture. I am also an avowed ailurophile. That said, my interest in fine and modern art has always been the crux of my existence. In recent years, I have been obsessed with combining my own photographic work with "found" images in order to create something unexpected. (Burroughs' and Gysin's philosophy of the "cut-up" technique has played a crucial role in how I approach art in general.) Most of my work attempts to bridge the uncomfortable gap between the poetic and the disturbing, with past and current social and political issues educating much of what I hope to convey. For me, art has always been the ultimate catharsis, and a means to deal with a personal lifelong struggle with mental illness. If I can convey at least a modicum of my intent whilst visually and emotionally enriching the lives of anyone who may appreciate my work, then I know I have succeeded, at least to some small degree...