WEIRD FACES COMIC BOOK DRAWINGS

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE! WEIRD FACE DRAWINGS...

Weird Faces! YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE! Conflicting emotions, multiple personality disorders and sad gothic fashions collide in these telepathic comic book portraits. Have you ever noticed that people don’t always say what they mean, do as they speak or even believe their own thoughts?  Despite all outwardly appearances, the world is inexpressively alive and cognizant. People thoughts, deeds and actions circulate infinitely at even the quietest of coffee tables.

Just beneath the surface of every individual’s minds eye exists a universe in its entirety, separated from, yet intermingled with our material surroundings. Can anyone truly reveal themselves or is the body merely a prison holding cell for the unconscious imagination? This collection of dark drawings explores the complexity of social expressions revealing the contradictory nature of verbal, physical and metaphysical communications. The caricatures have been captured at moments of extreme exertion, simultaneously revealing excitement, depression, paranoia and charisma ultimately questioning all notions of people at their worst.

The “You Know What You Are!” ink drawings were all made while travelling around the city of Toronto. I spent most of my time sitting in parks, cafes, and bars observing all the strange people. One of the most interesting things I discovered was how often similar situations, and even colloquial phrases, tended to repeat themselves. These bizarre redundancies inspired both the aesthetic and literary components of the drawings. I started writing down sentences that I’d hear over and over and created the characters based on several different models. I might use the lips from one subject and another left eye from another, a third for the hair style and so on. This amalgamation of different people started to reveal that we aren’t so different after all.

 “You Know What You Are!” weird faces included 250, 5” x 7” pen and ink drawings made on archival lithography paper. The works were created between the months of April – June of 2004 at various locations around the City of Toronto. The entire collection was shown at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition in July 2004 and a smaller installation was included at XPACE solo presentation in August of the same year.  Also of interest is that these strange zombie portraits represent the first “HEY APATHY!” works to be made outside of the artist’s studio.

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