"Middle Class America" 2013, inks/markers

   We teeter on the edge. Individuals and citizens alike...we all seem to have overwhelming circumstances overhead, preposterous Seussian gravity holds the weight aloft. The eminence of  artfully stacked...hoarded assemblages holds up...detains our guilt...shame...remorse...ambitions.      

   Perhaps this is why I keep revisiting these stacked rock motifs. I am drawn to (pun blundered into) the act of stacking make-believe hoodoos...compulsively make "inukshuks" as I walk along woods paths. I long for visions of guidance, look for answers sublimated in the teetering precedence, long to make sense of my own accordance.

   My vision here details a small house quietly nestled amidst all this peril.  This is us (U.S.)...this is the world we have made. We have spread our actions amongst the globe...homogenized cultural diversity into McDonaldized heaps of dangerous propensity. We go about out lives despite the commodious reprobate waiting/weighting over us. We are either heroes or stooges, perhaps both at the same time...and why not? We flail along with deceptions of grandeur, delight in acquiring more and more, concoct our pending demise...hopefully...perhaps...not.The gravity of our actions is continuous...tenuous. When do we wake? Where will we go? ...how will we know? 

"Hello, I am Theo Egmund", 2013 Acrylic/Ink on paper

   Absurdity prevails! I have always admired the Surrealists, and their notion that "truth" looms quietly behind dreams and the subconscious. Of course truth is a slippery topic...it really depends on your point of view and other preconceived notions. For me truth is evasive even to myself; I often find glimmers of it tucked away in hidden corners of my work. It juts it's head out from under a patch of layered lines, or suddenly emerges out from a "randomly" chosen characterization. Numerous times I revisit a work and discover an oblivious homage or a subliminal image staring me in the face. 

   There is a tranquilizing liberating benefit to letting your psyche roam free range over an empty surface. A feeling of flow is unleashed, and I am free. There in my subdued-sub-dude eloquence, I am able to reach out past myself...to touch something more ethereal, strange, and powerful.

   The topic here follows my standard approach...I have no idea what the hell it means right now :) As mentioned before, black helps me to conjure these maniacal ideations. I begin with placement of the shape...it emerges as an egg-shape, it morphs into a face, then a body. The lyrics from I Am the Walrus echoes through my brain...Egg man...Egmund seems right. It seems like a fine fitting psychological feature. I set him adrift in a steaming pool of blankness/blackness. He is boiling. He is trapped. He is socializing. He is inane to his circumstances. He is me...he is you...koo koo kachoo.

Eye-Land 2

   This little piece is not very large (9" x 12"), but it makes a big impact. A big part of my artwork has been surface elements or rather texturing...setting up a visual depiction of tactile readings has always fascinated me. I am intrigued by how light plays across the surface of things, or how patterns develop a rhythm within a composition. The emphatic beats lead your eye across the surface and just like a musical composition...cadences and pauses...setting up increments of loud contrapuntal to quiet echoes...these are the sings/pings/things placed within a composition like this.
   Eyes are the windows to the soul they say...multiple eyes will unnerve you. Complicit eyes...accusing...staring eyes make one cringe. Black soulless eyes (like dolls' eyes or sharks' eyes) give us the creeps...tingling sensations that fascinate and repulse us simultaneously. Big brother and his whole spider family are watching you.     Are they really eyes or bubbling obsidian?  

~Will they pray or prey upon us?~         

...and have you noticed, one of them has been plucked out...where did it go? What happened?  Was it an impact crater or an offending voyeur?
   I also love the sensation of high elevations (despite a somewhat phobic temporal effect it has on me). When I fly, I have to stare out the window at the earth below. My dreams of floating or flying are orgasmic. The images sent back from Voyager and it's progeny make me quiver...the flyby photos of distinct/distant worlds are simply awe-inspiring. I long to make that passage.