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.
