Parade of Delusion

First completed piece of 2022 is here, depicting some version of an event that occurred over a year ago in 2021. This event has obviously been at the forefront of the news lately and, unlike most news these days, has actually kept our attention longer than a week after it was reported. After a whole year passed I felt like I had spent enough time thinking about the events that took place on Jan. 6th, 2021 and some of the motives that pushed people to do what they did, that I could condense my thoughts into an illustration about it. 

A lot of the narrative around this day has been getting twisted over the last year and there is a big attempt by certain news outlets and people to rewrite this day as a peaceful demonstration. A lot of this has made me think about how much of our history is distorted and altered and how a lot of this can be found in iconic works of art. The first image that immediately popped into my head was Jacques-Louis David's painting of Napoleon Crossing the Alps and I think it lent itself perfectly as a reference for this to display a false sense of bravery and heroics. Plus, after I read about the horse made of 5G energy appearing on a family's lawn I knew I had to illustrate that in some way.

This piece is me jumping back into a series I started working on during 2020 and have wanted to add to since these days are feeling very similar to the first year of the pandemic before the vaccine became readily available. the uncertainty, anxiety, and confusion is still very much a part of our daily lives and I feel like I have more to add to the series I first started as a way to process my feelings around the pandemic.

 

I Won't Be Needing You Anymore.

This triptych is part of my body of work currently hanging up in "Character and Narrative" at the Foothills Art Center. I made this series a couple years ago and had no outlet for it other than it was something I had been thinking about and wanted to make. I've been really fascinated by my/our love of the outlaw/classic male and moving ahead with the things we love about them and leaving behind the less than savory aspects. I'm also very interested in how they navigate their way, clumsily, through this changing world. Show runs until October 20th.

I Won't Be Needing You Anymore

The battle of the modern cowboys has been completed! This one went through a lot of revisions and idea adjustments over the 4 months I was working on it. It bounced all over the place from purely focusing on one subject such as masculinity, business, technology, advertising, appropriation, or nostalgia and I think it managed to nestle in somewhere among all those things in the end. Enjoy all the process pics below.

Modern Cowboy Part 2

Here's the next step in the saga of the modern cowboy. I'll have a full explanation on this when I finish the final piece. Really enjoyed painting that little moon up there.

It's like George Strait and Joy Division Had a Baby.

Did a shirt for Homegrown Skate Shop in Ithaca, NY. The owner, Andrew, had seen my dead cowboy image and wanted something along those lines. We still went through some other options but in the end decided upon the cowboy and his horse on their last ride. By the way, we're not trying to suggest anything about the shop with this theme. We just thought it looked badass. There's also a sketch in here you my recognize because it has been shown on here before in a fully fleshed out state. Sometimes a rejected sketch is too good to let go.

      

Once I had done all the inking, I felt like I still wanted more out of the image, and that thing I wanted more of was CLOUDS!! I love drawing clouds, and what brooding western scene isn't complete without some gigantic, majestic clouds? I sketched a ton of different types of clouds and they all sucked. I was starting to think it was hopeless, and then I saw it; Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures album cover. BOOM!  I sat back in my chair, elated, thinking to myself, "That's exactly what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna draw some clouds that look something like that album cover!" I knew I wanted the first round printed on black shirts anyways, so it was settled.

Does the Unknown Pleasures influence come through? Or does it just seem far fetched?

To top this post off I've included the colored illustration that is going to be used on the next round of shirts. Maybe for fall? Stay tuned for info.