HEY APATHY! Artworks 2001-2009

HEY APATHY! This is a little chronological montage of my artworks from 2001-2009. The video describes the progression of the drawings over an extended period of time. The initial comics depict the city as a giant gear, propelled by hordes of faceless people. Each subsequent series brings the audience in for a closer examination of the city. The faceless crowds begin to identify themselves and we come to realize that it is in fact all the different kinds of people who make the gear grind. Simutaneous with the artworks, I also continued to move closer and closer and eventually became a part of the city. My earliest works were created in a suburban basement, then I moved into a Kensington Market Studio. Shortly after that I began studying in cafes and bars around downtown Toronto and eventually became a fully licensed professional street artist. HEY APATHY! has been expressed as drawings, gallery installations, murals, animations, fashion designs, and is currently being independently produced as an online comic and ongoing comic book series.

HEY APATHY! ONLINE COMIC PAGE FOUR

HEY APATHY ONLINE COMIC PAGE FOUR: After discussing the issue with the ghost of a dead musician, the young artist decides to explore his visions through a series of india ink drawings. After completing the initial investigation, the anti -hero exhibits the artworks at the college. Along with the large pen and ink installation a small set of comic books is set out like bait for unsuspecting audiences.

This montage depicts the time of my life between Dec 2000-March 2001. Working exclusively with hand made bamboo pens and black india ink on white paper, I created over 30 small cityscapes and 6 large ink drawings. The artworks were divided between meticulous gravelike cities and sparatic premonitions of the apocalypse. I exhibited these works at the O.C.A.D. Drawing & Painting Showcase in March 2001 accompanied by three short comic books. These comics contained explicit and horrific metaphors about deception, dedication, and decapitation. I put the books in a small container with a donation bin and left them at the exhibit. Although the experiment was not particularily lucrative, over 300 copies of the magazines were distributed during the two week event. I'm going to re-publish these comics as the next few pages of the online adventure

HEY APATHY! ONLINE COMIC PAGE THREE

HEY APATHY! ONLINE COMIC PAGE THREE: This page depicts the young anti-hero awaking suddenly from precognitive nightmares of an impending apocalypse. In a trance like moment of realisation, the little person leaves his bedroom and proceeds to his basement studio. Here he turns on some music, stands in the middle of a large sheet of paper and hand carves a pen out of bamboo. The ritual acts as like a seance, resurecting the spirit of the musician on the tape. Fully understanding the extent of the young artists inspiration, the spirit warns him of possible future threats. Despite these horrific premonitions the artist and ghost both agree that the drawings must be created, and the stories must be told.

I started drawing seriously around Dec 1999. At this time my focus was on creating surrealist horror comics, chop full of all kinds of nasty things (cannibal diners,witches etc.) However my objectives changed drastically the following winter. One evening I set out to start drawing when I found an old Beatles tape. The album documented the groups progression from pop stars to activists. I had an epiphany (symbolized by headlessness in the comics) and came to the realisation that if I was going to make comics, that they should be about real conflicts, and potentially have some sort of social value. Following this experience I started work on HEY APATHY!

HEY APATHY! ONLINE COMIC PAGES 1 & 2

HEY APATHY! So I've started posting pages of the online comic at www.twitter.com/onlinecomicbook. In the blog I'll post detailed accounts and essays about the pages. I'm a little behind as the comic is on page four already,but here it goes anyways...

HEY APATHY! ONLINE COMIC PAGE ONE: This is the opening scene of the comic, starting from a bird's eye view, the city reveals itself as a giant gear propelled by never-ending crowds of faceless people. This is the city of graves, apparently hopeless and completely surrounded by commuting inhabitants residing in uniform boxes. Psychic screams begin to cry out, calling us to the metropolis. The strange MONSTERS which reside in the unconscious act as sirens of the city.

I started work on these cityscape drawings in Dec. 2000. I had been creating short horror comics for a while already but decided to shift my attention towards real life (did you know there is a brown spot in the ocean bigger than some countries made of garbage?) . The series was divided between two stories, one of the city controlled by an illusion of conformity, and the other visions of the apocalypse, a warning that if we didn't change our ways we would inevitably be destroyed. The initial series included six large ink drawing, and 30 or 40 smaller works. I exhibited the initial installment in the O.C.A.D. drawing & painting showcase in March 2001, and again during the year end exhibition and scholarship competition (where the drawings won second prize) in April 2001. The ink stained Monster faces were created a year later ( Feb 02) as a series of rapid left handed studies. I made over 250 of these creature, primarily on off cut mat boards I got for free from a framing store. After completing the meticulous year-long study of the city, I needed to take a completely different approach to creating the artworks and resided to short, uncontrolled, scribble tests for about 2 months

HEY APATHY! ONLINE COMIC PAGE TWO: Here we see the surrounding housing units and all the little bubble people travelling to and from nowhere. We return to the Ariel view of the city and realize that we are inside the dreams of one of the little people. The dream sky turns red and the city is blown away by a hurricane like blast...

Following the initial presentation of HEY APATHY, I resided to continue the series for the duration of one year. During this time I created over 300 8"x10" drawings depicting the commute from to and from the city. These drawings were created with fine point technical pens on my daily bus & subway rides to the Ontario College of Art & De$ign. The apocalypse drawings were created in Feb. 2001 and perpetually through out the coarse of my one year study. The completed project consisted of approximately 30 large paintings & murals, over 300 small artworks, and 3 minutes of classically drawn animations. The exhibited also feature a 4 story skyline back drop made of sewn bed sheets and hand painted cartoon clouds.

HEY APATHY! O.C.A.D. Atrium Gallery Jan. 2002

Oh yeah and this wasn;t very funny