Introduction to the UgliesID: Drawings
The “ugly” works (not coined by me), also known as The Uglies (plural noun), were a pivotal moment for me in my art reorientation in the late 1990s and early 2000s when my work began to transition to be politically incorrect. Thematically, however, these works have nothing to do with my newly born intent to be fixing of the global sociopolitical issues that from this point on will begin to popup in my head more and more, but everything to do with the reflection of the dysfunctional world we live in. In essence, I am depicting the collapsing of society in pessimistic and darkly humorous manner. Due to their crude nature, stylistically these artworks belong in the category of outsider art. Pretty much all of these works were done habitually in the late 1990s as I was depressed from the ineffective culture that I was surrounded by. After completing each artwork I couldn't wait to start the next one because I was addicted to them. This was the beginning period of my transference moment that the psychoanalists talk about; essentially I was falling in love with a hobby that was rescuing me from my anxiety of not being loved by women and not finding solid employment. As I was poor, single and lonely without a partner The Uglies were alleviating my stress after school and after work. They were not only a pivotal moment in my changing art that will eventually grow to be super sociopolitically charged, but in my changing life too. At that time I was transitioning from being a follower of the conventional ways of living – to abandoning it. Two fronts were closing on me and preventing me from having a normal life: my lack of having money and my lack of being loved by the women who I was attracted to. The Uglies were my escape from the lies that I had been promised by the phony American dream, and by the phony culture that had promised me to be loved by the women. I was becoming an outsider who was creating outsider art, and by doing it I was resisting my oppressive fronts. (I have at least a hundred of The Uglies, and little by little will begin to scan them.)
