WILL WOOTEN ART
Curriculum Vitae |
Artist StatementTo me, art is a form of problem solving, introspection and reflection. As the late, great Jean-Michel Basquiat once quoted, "I don't think about art when I'm working. I try to think about life." Whether using oils, colored pencils or inks, I am at my most meditative state while executing intricate details and blending elements that, much like a sculptor working physically with clay, are continuously manipulated and altered by my thought processes in discovery until clarity is achieved and all the elements begin to take shape.
Like the title character in the book, “Harold and the Purple Crayon”, my imagination was fostered at a young age and I drew my way through childhood. My most formative years were spent alongside millions of other eighties-era children plopped in front of the television set watching animated programs like He-Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers and so many others. My love of Saturday morning cartoons soon turned to an infatuation with video games and comic books. By the time I was in high school, my life was filled with hip hop and skate culture. Completely awestruck by the bold characters, tangled lettering and explosive colors of graffiti and graphic design, I soon realized that the these influences, no matter how subtle, would forever find a place at home within my (he)art. My current work involves mostly oils on canvas and skateboard decks and attempts to strike an unsettling interaction with the viewer by presenting him or her with compositions of exaggerated figures or bits and pieces of anatomy suspended within the two dimensional spaces they occupy. Often posed with elongated limbs and entwined digits that frame faces holding bold and almost unavoidable gazes, my subjects eagerly look to make eye contact with those who seek to engage with them. Using a mostly monochromatic palette as a means to psychologically set the mood with color, my paintings are executed in such a manner that the overall image itself is enough to pique the interest of the viewer from afar, only to draw them in close enough to be treated by fine detail and brushwork. |
