First in the “Hollywood Goddesses” series.
Although the contrast between the psychedelic background and Veronica Lake is amazing, I seem to recall that this piece gave me a headache when I was putting it together!
I can’t recall exactly how old this, maybe late 1990s. It’s been quite some time since I included a ‘warp’ logo in my work.
This was the third in my “Hollywood Goddesses” series.
And like all series (hopefully) they improve with each successive installment. “Saint Betty” is definitely my favourite and although I finished the series with this piece, 50-foot women being worshipped by cute things is still a common theme in my work to this day.
I’m particularly fond of the little girls with bulldog heads, all done up in their party dresses. They are a deliberate nod to pop artist , I highly recommend his work. The titles alone are worth the price of admission.
From my the ‘Hollywood Goddesses’ series of the late 1990s.
My mother gave me a book of great black-and-white portraits of old movie stars and I decided to see how they would look against very colourful backgrounds.
I can see the beginnings of what became signature elements here: a landscape across the bottom of the collage, patterns made of spheres.
The title is borrowed from a very under-rated song from the Rocky Horror Picture Show: ““.
The cool kids vacation of the future, that is.
The nice clean-cut young people are from a 1950s National Geographic, and judging from the standard of rendering I’d say the “red planet” background dates from about 1995.
Lacking the density and symmetry of my later work, this piece nevertheless has a great sense of surreal fun about it.
A very strange dinner gathering indeed.
I don’t recall the exact origin of the ET image but it really does look like it belongs with these Norman Rockwell characters, doesn’t it?
A fun little piece made from Mexican illustrations I collected when I was a damn tourist.
They’re super cute and make for a fun collage about the importance of maintaining decent levels of personal hygiene even when if live in a place full of volcanoes and rabid dogs and bloodthirsty dinosaurs.
Is there some great meaning to life, or is it all just a big cosmic joke?
On one level this is a reference to classical paintings of Gods at play or plotting to use humanity as their pawns; having a joke at our expense.
It’s also about the nihilistic view that there is no meaning to life, no point to our existence or guiding hand at work in the Universe. Life is a great big cosmic joke delivered by a tiny cat in a language you don’t understand, with a punchline that makes no sense.
See, I told you it was nihilistic.
“There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done….”
This one dates back to about 2010, when I first bought my supply of concentric circles. They’ve been showing up in every third or fourth work ever since.
Despite the nice message and the fun I had making this piece, I don’t treasure it as much as I could, possibly because it doesn’t have enough blue and green for my tastes.
Shock horror, some empty space (in space!)
This is quite unusual for me, most of the time I feel the need to fill all available space.
In this case, I’ve shown a little restraint and left some much-needed space to be filled with glittery stars.
A little bit of deep sea dark magic for you.
I like the idea of this as a piece of , but it might be a little too creepy!
I’ve long been a fan of Cthulhu and I love the “flowery” language that HP Lovecraft uses in his stories.
A long time ago I used to make music under the name Sharkweek, here’s a very homemade video for my song “The Life Of R’lyeh” which uses dialogue from the original Call of Cthulhu story.