That’s What You Eat When You Are Dead - 23x9” collage on masonite
Title taken from the song “The Worms Crawl In,” which comes from the old ballad “Alonzo the Brave and Fair Imogine” from the romance novel Ambrosio (The Monk) by Matthew Gregory Lewis. Published in 1796, the novel was “banned for its explicit nature.” Heh.
There’s nothing deep or symbolic about this collage, beyond what’s obvious. This is the first time I’ve made a collage based on one of the many doodles that fill up my sketch books. I used photos of grass, worms, roaches, ants and black flea larvae for reference, but was on my own for the composition. That’s why it looks ill-planned.
I almost consider this kind of work to be more craft-based, since it doesn’t have a ton of thought put into the composition or the execution, and since it doesn’t take as much time to make as some of the other, loftier projects I’ve made.
Matt often encourages me to do more work like this, because this insecty, crittery, very silly stuff is what my drawings have always looked like. I think it’s healthy to take a break from more time-consuming projects to make goofy things like this. But relying on imaginative sketches is, I think, the backbone of a lot of low-brow/pop surrealism art, and that massively overblown genre doesn’t need another hipster in its ranks.
I don’t know why most low brow art doesn’t turn me on. There’s something very cheap and empty about it, and sometimes I think too much pop culture is bad for the brain.
(That said, I’ve always been crazy for Coop, and greatly admire how open he is about his process. His blog is always entertaining. And I think Michael Hussar’s paintings are some of the most technically difficult, beautifully executed and overwhelmingly academic works I’ve ever seen. I’d kill to look at them in person, and they’d probably kill me back. This one is my favorite.)
Detail photos here.