Artist's Statement
My work is in the tradition of the satirical print. My goal is to portray the absurdities that exist in the world around me in both my personal sphere and the greater world of mass culture and politics. Many of my pieces are about the advancement of creeping authoritarianism within our society and people's willingness to let the government and other higher powers take responsibility for every aspect of their lives. Over the course of the twentieth century there has been a rapid deterioration in the rational, individualistic thinking of classical liberalism and the enlightenment, and slowly we have seen the erosion of our freedoms, both personal and economic. Fifty years ago Friedrich Hayek warned in his monumental book, The Road to Serfdom, that allowing the government to take control of our economic responsibilities will inevitably lead to totalitarianism. It was no coincidence that the Nazis, Italian fascists, and Stalinists all had their roots in socialism and the philosophies of the left. For the time being, we still have a semblance of free expression in this country which permits me openly to display my art. However, with each tiny part of life we allow to be regulated away, we move closer and closer to losing our rights to govern our own lives.
With that said, let me move on to what inspires me artistically. Rather than adopt a more traditional approach to satire, i.e. Daumier's style, I choose to use a slightly skewed Northern Renaissance Style. My favorite artists are Bosch, Breugel, Hans Bauldung Grien, Dürer, and Rogier Van Weyden. I am also a big fan of the German Expressionists Otto Dix and Max Beckman. Though I use a cartoon style I am always trying to push towards a much more subtle style of rendering that would allow my subject matter to creep up a bit slower. I don't think I've quite nailed this yet, but I'll continue to press on. (I don't live completely in the past, there's also a bunch of contemporary artists I dig too!)