Paying Debts

The advancement of my art involved sequential, gradual, and consistent experimentation. It was never a binary of a certain style "working" and another "failing". The changes over time flowed, one after another, and came to me naturally. I went where the art took me. It required hundreds of artworks before my art arrived to where it is today, where it is still evolving, and will evolve perpetually. The exhibited piece, “Paying Debts” is from a time where the strictly-collage style was expanding with a layer of illustrations. The main classical art piece that "Paying Debts" is based on is "The Last Statement" by Arthur Kampf. During this time, my art was much simpler in its detail. I do not remember exactly, but this piece probably took me a few hours over the course of a few days to create. It shows the combination of collage with immature illustration on top. The faces on the characters foreshadow the creation of my colorful, hooded characters called "fiends". The clouds in the background were illustrated by me, but are far less detailed than the clouds I draw today. This piece is important to me because it shows how far my art has come. My work gained traction in 2021, but not many people have looked back at my older work and how it has consistently evolved into where it is today. It’s important to look back into any artist’s career to see first-hand that it is almost never an overnight "success."