SEXDEATH

It's been over two years since I graduated art school. By the time I was done with it, I had grown sick of the high brow art snob scene, and turned away from anything but my 'dumb drawings'. I haven't been to a museum or gallery since. I never went alot during my studies, either. Mostly, art school was a good way for me to live off government money, be able to go on tours, while still pretending I was getting an education. Not that art school was an easy ride. While there weren't as many books and papers, it was basically five years of making art that I believed in, then having it criticized by my professors. Constantly having to defend your work, constantly being asked questions about things that are personal to you, is not an easy thing. Especially if half of the people trying to get into your psyche are complete lunatics themselves. But in the end, I learned alot that way. Unconsciously, I don't do anything anymore without being able to back it up. I usually don't explain anything I do, but if you ask questions, I will have answers. Half the time I don't even think about what something means until I am done, or if I'm asked about it. But it all has meaning. Often it has multiple meanings. That goes for anything I do, be it paintings, a drawing of a moshing skinhead, lyrics, or the photos above and below. Ofcourse, you could take the most meaningless thing and give it meaning, if you're a good bullshitter. That's another thing I picked up in art school.

I don't know why I took these photos. After my two year withdrawal, I started to get interested in (non-illustration) art again. Started taking some pictures, started wishing I still had a videocamera. Alot of my work in school was borderline obscene. And my work usually sprung from the fact that I was lazy. While alot of students would plan trips to find a perfect setting for their photography, I rarely left my block. It was an approach that I stubbornly argued to my professors, until they agreed that I would be lying if I were to pretend I wasn't lazy.



For these images, I didn't even leave my desk. If you can't tell, I took these right off my computer screen, and left them unaltered. They were an idea, an instinct. I made them, gave it two seconds of thought, and gave it a name. That was it. I like them. I actually came up with the name sexdeath in art school. It represents the fact that everything we do in life can be traced back to sex and death. Besides that, it also sounds like something a horny teenage metalhead came up with, so that's a bonus.

I'm sure if you're only familiar with my illustrations, you might ask 'you call this art?'. Why yes, I do.