The Popocalypse

My work examines perpetual adolescence as it manifests in Pop Culture. It draws from aspects of Pop Culture that are obsessed with the hero story, the trials of which parallel the trials of growing up. In Campbellian terms, these stories are more obsessed with the  “trials” part of the story, and less with the “return.” The engaging part of any story is the battle, the fight, the struggle, and the areas of Pop Culture that I investigate and pull from-namely comic books, video games, action movies, and cartoons-are all as obsessed with the battle as the fans who actively engage these works. There is a zeitgeist happening where the “Boy-Men”, through reflexive anti-reflexivity, are extending their youth into a new idea of what it means to be grown up, where play, humor, and wit have a higher place than more serious pursuits.

Atom Boy

The character of Atom Boy is a quintessential superhero, with the one fatal flaw that’s he’s not very good at it. It’s his lack of ability as a superhero that hints at his inability to grow up, that for all his posturing he’s essentially a child. All his equipmunk is rough, dinged up, and kinda crappy, and is over the top in both scale and function to make up for his lack of actual prowess at pwning. He assembles his weapons, armor, and vehicles from various aspects of Pop Culture that he finds lying around, with a preference toward items already in line with a battle mentality. His main enemies are noobz, enemies who couldn’t ever actually beat Atom Boy because they’re not human, anymore than the villains in comic books and action films are. 

Ceramics

My work has evolved via years of experimentation, an interest in multiple fields outside of ceramics, and techniques learned from other artists. Appropriating the visual cues of Car Culture and Sci-Fi into the formal setting of functional pottery, through the lines and forms utilized, is the focus of my creative drive. I strive to bring animation and dynamic movement into my work, by pushing outside of the ‘normal’ boundaries of ceramics while respecting traditional techniques.

Hand thrown and manipulated on and off the wheel to achieve the final form, my ceramic work is either Cone 10 reduction or Cone 10 Soda fired, with a preference for Soda. Experimentation with glazes within these two firing methods has yielded surfaces and colors that react well with each other, adding visual depth to the surface while enhancing the flow of the overall piece.