Neo Pop Art Chaos

Below is a series of images I’ve created that I refer to as “Neo Pop Art Chaos”.

Its a bit of a divergence from the usual type of images I’ve made in the past. I had recently learned of an artist and was really intrigued with his artwork – Joseph Klibansky. He creates these large paintings using black and white lineart over monochromatic and metallic tones, meshed with scribbled words, and layered with ‘film negative effect’ illustrations. Fabien Novarino is another artist I came across, with his bold, expressive collages of cartoon characters and celebrity photos fused together with spray paint and chaotic placement of text and fonts. These artists were a big influence on me with experimenting in this style.

Although the artists mentioned above were an influence, I think the driving force for me to begin this series was an act of rebellion against the emergence of Ai art. When Ai imagery really started picking up steam, with beautfully rendered pin-up images of characters from popular media, I had a slight freak-out moment, fearing my own obsolescence. Much of my early popularity as an artist was from creating pin-up images, often spending 10 to 30 hours per piece, and now Ai was here creating the same thing with thousands of variations in a fraction of the time.

So diving into this style, to me, was a bit of an attempt at reclaiming the human touch of art, exploring ways to inject my own original contribution and creativity; to create something that could not so easily be replicated by Ai.

Once I start an image, I never really know where it will take me. I will have a rough idea in mind, but often the look and energy of the model, wardrobe choices, and poses will dictate the overall creative direction.