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This piece, “Master of Puppets” was designed to poke the bear in my viewers. It came from a long string of personal experience that led me to the concept, and come show time in 2019, it received more praise than any other piece I have ever created….. This now gives me the desire to poke the bear a little harder in the future.

Art should evoke a response. It is the artist's responsibility to do so. Long before language existed, art was a form of communication dating right back to 44000 years ago in images such as these found in Indonesia.

So in saying this, you will constantly see communication in my work. Each piece is carefully designed to have my viewers in a deep dialogue with themselves, or with the people around them.

This piece in particular did this to a few people....

“I love how the person in the background is a beautiful flower who is set free from being manipulated. And he helps the others to literally "cut" free.”
Matylda

“Is it about corporate control?”
Raymond:

“I love this so much. I have this in my mind of 2020. So happy to see some are being helped and will break away.”
Betty

“Does it have a Metallica soundtrack?”
Ravindra

A reaction to an artwork can swing in any different direction, and it is guided by the viewers themselves. A reaction is only a reflection from their own personal experience.

The really interesting thing is that, as a part of my process in this piece, I had the crosses shaped a little more toward the religious symbol, and Olga convinced me to be a little less obvious with the symbolism. This was an incredible piece of advice, as it still allows a viewer to go down that rabbit hole if they so choose to. This also inspired me to be more subtle in many aspects of the art that has followed since this piece… rather than shoving the idea in the viewer's face.

If a viewer wanted to perceive it as religious, they could do that. But I didn’t force it upon them, and it doesn’t limit the interpretation of the symbol to one thing.

The other funny part about this artwork is the story surrounding the model Grady who posed for me in this piece.

Olga and I had gotten to our gallery nice and early on a Sunday morning. We'd rigged up a rope to the roof to tie to his ankle, set up a platform with a hole in it for Grady to stick his head in, and then patiently waited for him to arrive at 9am. As the clock ticked away, we became a little worried he wasn’t going to show, then of course the text came in. Grady was way too hungover to come in. I shed a little light on the fact that it was all ready to go, and Grady being the trooper that he is, showed up. After a good couple of hours of shooting other ideas in an upright position, it was time to turn the man upside down.

The thing I will never forget is Grady’s eyes after he’d been hanging upside down for thirty minutes. They were blood red and he was spinning. I am so grateful to the man for his efforts on this day as I cannot imagine the amount of discomfort that he was in to be there for me. I feel that it shows in many of the poses as well.

FYI: My work always requires some sort of reference shooting as the folds in a suit coupled with the shadows can never really be made up.

The process to this piece is very straight forward. I started with a sketch from a variety of images, then I constructed them into a tight composition. From there I simply painted away.

So here is my afterthought:

If you are still here reading, I want to share my own meaning behind this piece. As much as I don’t want my personal viewpoint to railroad my viewers' journey through each work, each idea always comes from a certain personal experience.

This one in particular is from my experience building a company called Direct2Artist.

This is where I need to excuse myself for allowing the honest side of me to run free.

I am not a negative person, but this experience tested my limits. Any test like this can only yield positive results in the long run, but the time during the experience was filled with extreme highs and extreme lows. A roller coaster ride that really takes a toll on one’s well being.

D2A hit 80 countries and over 3000 artists signed on. We had multiple large investments, and I was the lead artist. My role was to be the “Oyster” as I called it. I would filter all of the artist and community feedback to my tech team, and we would make changes based on what we felt or knew was the next step for the site.

The idea was born out of my own experience and the feedback from many artists I crossed paths with online and in my community. Artists want success, but they don’t have the tools or knowledge to succeed, so we created it all for them.

We built personal websites for each artist, and had an online gallery that they could sell in. The online gallery had first version AI that helped visitors easily find the art that they were looking for and an Augmented reality app which would enable them to see the art to scale on any wall in their own home. We had educational content, we gave them an inventory management system, analytics and contact management. We even built a very simple, easy to use mailchimp style newsletter function that any artist could use without technical difficulty, to email their fan base, while all of it working within one system to make life easy for any artist.

By no means was it the perfect system, but it was close, and we were working tirelessly to perfect it.

All of this still wasn’t good enough…. I personally worked with individuals to help them understand the tools. I went out and found artists that needed help, and got them on board. This was all done over a period of 5 years.

The really hard pill to swallow from this experience was that in many ways I was being fooled. The vast majority of these artists didn’t want the tools, they just wanted me, or someone else like me, to do it all for them. In most cases they were completely happy to remain with their heads stuck deep in the sand. Many who had poked their heads out of the sand realised that they would have to then turn upside down and walk the desert on their own. In the end, all our efforts weren’t enough to have the idea catch on in a way that would justify continuing the business.

In this artwork the Peregrine Man who is cutting the rope represents me. As you can see he is cutting the rope of the only man who is trying to get his head out of the sand.

This was an important life lesson for me. Helping someone is a two way street; there is effort required on both sides, and we can only help the people who are willing to help themselves.

There are still a lot of questions that run through my mind when I think of this experience. Was it time wasted trying to help so many people who were unwilling to put in the effort to help themselves? Did we begin in the wrong place by giving them the tools first instead of trying to spark the internal desire for self liberation? If we helped just one person, was it worth it? Are most people just happier remaining with their heads in the sand?

In the end, the learning I got from the five years of trying to help artists was invaluable. It has given me a deep understanding of the entrepreneur’s journey. And for that, I am truly grateful.