Fan art is the working title for a body of work that will be shown in a rough state in Phoenix this September (Studio Lodo), then in a more final form in Seattle next March (Howard House).
I'm still having trouble being concise about the real topic - it is probably too big to be addressed this way - but I'm hoping that by the time the Phoenix show opens things will be clearer.
Here's what I have so far:
I'm interested in the tension between the personal and shared worlds (PKD - Idios Kosmos, Koinos Kosmos) - and the way that sub-cultures mediate between the two poles. I generally think of myself as functioning nearer the idios pole (though perhaps we all do;). Certain elements of our culture attract me, and provide a base of information that I can use to more comfortably communicate with other people. Science fiction, comic books, video games, movies, porn, drugs and model making have been the most interesting to me historically.
Sometime after I started making Art, I realized that my tendency toward the idiosyncratic was limiting my ability to communicate effectively with my audience. So I started to push my work toward the other end of the scale. My primary method was to use either subject matter or a visual vocabulary that I believed my audience would be familiar with - this creates the recognition that gets the viewer to connect with the work.
With this body of work I want to define these elements more clearly - I want to show that methods of achieving a balance between the idiosyncratic and the corporate can be different, but that as long as the tension points fall within a certain range the work will be effective. Additionally, I'd like to figure out why all this weird stuff holds such an attraction for me.
Fan art, that is, making art about other art that you feel passionately about, seems to be a good framework to explore these ideas. Often it is uninteresting to anyone but the artist, yet it is inspired by, and is often a discussion of, universally important themes.
I'm working on a diagram (inspired by public access evangelists) that should present this information in a clearer format. It will get bigger and more complex over the next few months.
