Inspiration for ‘Open view’ came from my ADHD mind. It is a way of depicting how my mind works. In the background is a shattered bust of me showing my rib cage, representing my vulnerability and how I leave myself exposed for sake of message. I’ve always had a fascination with death and my awareness of time slipping away. I represented this by the skull ‘death’ card with the Hg on it. Hg represents my fear of one day not being able to exist here due to our polluting of our eco system with heavy metals including mercury. I use game pieces in my work because I am fascinated with games and enjoy quite a few of them. The girl holding the floating shattered egg is a representation of youthfulness and my wife. She is always telling me to free myself from my over thinking of things. The shattered egg with Hg again represents the fragility of our natural environment and our tendency to want to manipulate this from their natural state of being. The darts moving through the piece depict my love for darts and our lack of care when aiming our pointed ideology in the air. The mask of Salvador Dali shows how our past is formed by masks of those that we admire in our formative years. I was inspired to a large degree when I was a youth by Dali. I am represented by the clown holding the paint brush awkwardly at Dali. I have felt a number of times as a clown, existing just for the fleeting moments of amusement in peoples lives with no real purpose other than for a joke. I placed a portrait of my wife peeking through the broken pieces of my life as often people do while I’m working out in the public. The golden fish represents our sea life that we are contaminating with mercury and other heavy metals one day making it where we won’t be able to use fish in our diets. The all seeing eye is a symbol for God and my acknowledgement that He is always watching.
Open View was created with layering basic Prisma Color colored pencils on Stonehenge paper. My busted torso was drawn in with Faber-Castell graphite; F, 2B, 4B and 6B. My methods don't include the use of erasers, blending stumps or solvents of any sort ie, water or alcohol.