CROSS SECTIONS exhibit opens in Little Rock AR, 4/13!

I have an exhibit of comics and illustration work from 1998 to present, focusing on the graphic novel work of the last five years (The Year Of The Beasts, The Silence Of Our Friends, Any Empire, Swallow Me Whole), coming to the Historic Arkansas Museum (200 E. 3rd St.) in Little Rock, AR from April 13th to June 1st!

The exhibit, entitled Cross Sections, will have an opening reception on Friday, April 13th from 5-8pm. All pieces are for sale, and graphic novels will be available in the bookstore as well.

The opening will have musical accompaniment by Little Rock's own Isaac Alexander (Boondogs, The Easys, Big Silver), drinks aplenty, and food and soup tasting from Sharea Soup.

The Facebook event page is here.

If you're around town, I'll be signing at The Comic Book Store (9307 Treasure Hill Rd.) on Saturday, April 14th from 12-2pm. More original artwork will be available there as well.

Here's my artist statement for the show:

Cross Sections.

These are slices of much longer narratives developed from 1998 to the present. Viewing long-form comic book work in a gallery setting has its difficulties—each story or graphic novel I create sits as a single body of work, but is also made of 200-300 individual pieces, each then comprised of 5 or 6 panels, all of which are intended to be absorbed as part of the larger body, but which must also hold their own, free of sequential context.

With this exhibition, I present core samples from more than a dozen different projects over 14 years. The first period of work, from 1998 to about 2005, is defined by focus on failed communication, guilt, transience, and thinly-veiled desire. The second era, lasting until about 2008, is more focused on unassuming depictions of highly subjective experiences and characters, finally exploring dread, menace, selfishness, and loss of control. Works from 2009 to 2012 condense these questions, reintroducing them as more pointed narratives about Southern culture, shifting notions of identity, questionable legacies, and the threat of violence.

Many of my narratives are ambiguous or open-ended, and some readers are uncomfortable with the absence of a clearly established viewpoint. I’m personally drawn most to stories that demand multiple visits, those that contain the strong possibility of multiple true perspectives, and those that respect an audience’s ability to explore those questions themselves. My work is increasingly defined by questions that invite (and require) the reader to meet me halfway, invest some of their own lives into the narrative, and emerge from a unique and immersive reading experience with questions and dialogue of their own.