Unlikely associates

Abstract

It is my intention in the following written thesis to construct an investigative explanation regarding my own personal work and artistic philosophy. I shall incorporate influences from my own personal experience, 20th century European and American literature, and art history--specifically post-1940 American art. Significantly serious topics such as war, economics, history, death, and academia are investigated through the visual language of sci-fi, cartoons, comics, and zombies. Both arrangements of visual dialogue, the serious and the comedic, contain subject matter that greatly interests me. These function as uncommon idioms, and create an interesting visual as well as a distinctive social commentary. These works occasionally involve well known cultural imagery. My ambition is to show a parallel between the oftentimes historically indicative conceptual nature of the work itself and the sometime seemingly ridiculous or dramatic imagery depicted. I try to create work that provides the signs and clues for a complicated mystery with numerous components.