A Short Explanation
My art is defined by two things:
1. The neverending, overwhelming, and all consuming desire to progress and
2. The laziness induced paralysis that prevents number 1 from ever actually happening.
My art changes daily. Some days I focus on technical progression, some days the proliferation of new and unique inspiration, but mostly I just try to think of clever titles for my work to mask my technical and inspirational shortcomings.
On a more serious note, my goal is an observation, then interaction and engagement of my environment in an effort to provoke a greater awareness of my surroundings. Hopefully, as a side effect of this pursuit, an awareness of the true nature of things will emerge. This comes from a deep seeded feeling in my gut that things are not what they seem and there is something hiding somewhere. I'm not expecting a monster or anything like that. The monster is in plain view. What I'm hoping to find is the key. The key to what, you ask? That I do not know. But there is that feeling, that intuition that there is something more… a secret to be discovered, a vision to be seen, a system to be crushed, or all three.
As a result, intuition plays a big role in everything that is created. I think that the art is less a product of what I control and more a product of what is created through me. I am more or less a conduit. This is very apparent in the actual process of a painting. If I try to control the piece to much, it becomes awkward and uninteresting. But if I zone out and forget myself for a few hours then something equally as awkward but a little more interesting appears. I will be the first to admit that my process is heavily influenced by a lack of technical skill. But I trust that as technical skill develops, as it is bound to do in any sustained effort, the intuitive awareness will hopefully combine with that to make something that is neither awkward nor uninteresting.
Passive acceptance was never one of my strong suits. I have always had an impulse to join with the object of my observation and change it… make it something new and deliberate. This is a characteristic that is especially aligned with the tattoo medium. But this impulse manifests itself in every daily thought and action. Combined with the intuition and the desire to see past the surface, this quality creates sort of a motivating sickness for me. The sickness stems from the very apparent need for sweeping social change. This is a task which is clearly outside my sphere of influence. Right now, the only outlet is art. This is why there is a spectrum of the comfortable and beautiful to the ominous and disturbing present in the work. It is a cyclical process mirrored in most processes of nature. Art creates awareness which creates a feeling of discord which can then only be alleviated through the creation (destruction) of art.
For now, my art is a function of this discomfort. But instead of trying to move toward comfort, I choose to change the spectrum and render the discomfort benign. Facing aversion and seeing it for what it really is, while daunting, is one of the most beneficial things I have ever done for myself. This essentially removes power from those that would conspire to instill fear in an effort to control. At a certain point the cycle will become a spiral and then something may happen…. Perhaps a secret will be discovered, maybe a vision seen… But what I hope for most, a system will be crushed.
venacavatheta
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