artist statement

 

Boys In the ‘Hood, the newest series of works by BlackBoot, are inspired by the characters of the surrounding neighborhood and the scene that takes place in Schõneberg the boystown of Berlin. In an environment filed with testosterone, the visuals abound. Almost every possibility is at hand, boys fresh from the gym, men in leather, visitors from around the globe here to checkout the scene, and with all the stories that they all could all tell.

In an environment where sexual imagery abounds, as in advertising, publications and video, with all of today’s far reaching limits, there is not much that is left to the imagination. At times the characters may just find themselves in a frenzied blur from this over stimulation, as voyeurs discovering a treasure chest of treats, or at the other end of the spectrum, their senses completely dulled by the over saturation.

BlackBoot's artworks are inspired by the heavy black outlines and simplified styles of coloring books and cartoons from his childhood and combining this with imagery from gay pop culture, advertising and porn, BlackBoot presents his faceless minimal portraits in a way to leave the viewing participant free to imagine and fill in their own details. This purposefully leaves each scenario open to personal interpretations and hopefully encourages the viewer to let their minds run wild with their own narrations or fantasies.

Presented in two formats, both with solid colors in two dimension, either on collages of sheet music and/or printed materials, literally a pulp fiction, suggesting tidbits of a vague but mysterious background story of each persona, or drawn directly on cardboard, a very common and disposable but also a universal and recognizable material. In this second format, the flesh or body of the figure is unpainted, leaving the natural color of the panel to shine thru suggesting that with all these idyllic and super masculized figures, nothing is as it might first appear. They all are humans made from the X and the Y.

Or possibly with the vast wealth of contemporary freedoms, it is possible that we might sometimes fail to see the true and real person that is right in front of us.