Dylan & Friends

ABOUT "Dylan & Friends"

The gallery of images are from images created between 2008-2013 with the exception of an ink series, which was a year or two early.

I don't like to date my work, or sign it, because some expressions feel timeless and as if someone other than myself has authored it.  

BLACK & WHITE 

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To date the most powerful images that have been processed through my consciousness and have made their way into a physical manifestation have been black & white, either charcoal, conte, or ink on paper. I think that for some experiences in the human condition no color exists that can aptly convey the shock and horror of the experience... one suspends the impression in the land of disbelief for survivals sake where it waits to be transposed into creative expression.

 Gallery of Black and White Images

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I have explored using color over the years and in 2013 am exploring working almost entirely with color with exception of the drawings I "dance" into being with charcoal and large strips of butcher paper.  I intend with some of the images to explore processing them in photo shop then try various print processes to print the work out in a smaller format.  

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PRIVATE COLLECTIONS 

In the past I was not interested in marketing my visual art, mostly because I value my creative freedom and was not comfortable with the thought of "market" energy entering into the work/play space and wanted to create without any concern about whether it was "marketable" or not.  I am entering a new phase of development as a creative and feel as if I have a strong enough sense of self to retain the integrity of the process and allow work to begin moving out into the world.  To date, art I have sold, or passed on has been a consequence of someone seeing a work hanging on my wall and asking to buy it, or seeing it posted on Facebook and asking to purchase it, or asking to look at images and select one.  A few have been passed on as gifts.  Right  now the work is in Vienna, Paris, and California with a part of my portfolio in Brooklyn for a show.

Gallery of Work in Private Collections

ABOUT "Dylan & Friends"

I am a multi-disciplinary working class creative.  My work as a creator for the performing arts and my work as a visual artist is a dialog between the two mediums of expression.  Although mid-career in the performing arts, as a visual artist, I perceive myself as an emerging outsider “survivor” artist.  The work has both “brut” and “playful” overtones.

The work is a testament of the power that lies within harnessing one’s life work and using one’s life work as a cathartic medium of transformation and growth.  My work as a creative has enabled me to work my way out of a soulful/spiritual/emotional/physical abyss created by trauma induced acute Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.   I developed a Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as a multiple personality disorder) as a coping and survival mechanism.

Presently I am fully integrated and consider myself whole, at peace, and living my dream.

As a visual artist I am beginning to present my work as “Dylan & Friends”(Dylan being the visual art aspect of the self and friends the other aspects that also contribute to the process) and am “coming out of the closet” so to speak as a survivor.

I had my first one woman show in Vienna, AUSTRIA at ContraMass Galerie in 2012 and my second one woman show in Brooklyn, NY will occur in May at the Center for the Performing Arts as a part of the ADaPT Festival series.  Additionally, “unframing art” is a part of my practice as a creative and the work has been shown guerilla style at both the Belvedere Museum in Vienna and the Lourve in Paris in 2012 as a part of the Museum Project.

At this phase of my development I like working on paper most because paper comes from trees and this medium has a direct connection to the power of nature which plays a critical role in my transformational and evolutionary process.

The imagery is universal and tells the stories of my many “alters” and their experiences in life but in a  metaphorical way that anyone who has been through difficult times in life might find themselves in the work.

This particular body of work is a testament intended to give hope to those who struggle with PTSD and other forms of mental illness brought on by traumatic events, especially for the small children now grown struggling to get out of the war camp of their own childhood that haunts their waking hours.

Someone once expressed to a group of survivors at a convention I attended, from a place of wholeness and health, that it DOES get better. That there is a place of calm at the end of the healing river, and I held onto those words as an anchor in my own processing vowing that if I ever came to a place of wholeness I would do the same.

Let me life be a testament that the universe supports your healing and recovery process.

It DOES get better.

One day you will know peace.

Just keep working it!