GARDENfresh

David Lowman

Stoic Swine...soul in the soot, head in the ether

Stoic Swine makes drawings with a condor's focus (glinting at the apex of eye) and the steadiness of a hand reserved for a top-dollar surgeon. His large vine charcoal drawings are conceived and executed with a 'take-no-shit' intent. Stoic Swine explains, "When I am faced with a large white surface, I approach Drawing as a ritual and the goal of becoming entranced and entrenched with the current of mark-to-paper. I find it compelling when a drawing uses the artist as a vehicle in its own creation. This is Magic, and I am a minor component in providing a visual identity for its content."

Stoic Swine's recent work highlights perceived natures of god and self. “God’s First Blowjob” served as the gateway to the series, as did prevailing themes of grappling with ultimate power, personal dualities, the life force of sexuality, and humanized imagery of god. By placing gods or god-like creations in incongruous or earthly settings, he portrays the often conflicting relationship between divine power and individual understanding. Anthropomorphism in its finest hour.

This graphic assemblage may be viewed as a mighty derivative of Stoic Swine's upbringing by a drill-sergeant-turned-minister father, in conjunction with his personal in-depth queries into spirituality and mortality, and synthesized through years of impulsive cocktail napkin sketches of god/bull heady beings, monsters, and penis’.

Stoic Swine's additional areas of inspiration, examination and exploration for this body include: Dogon death masks, ayahuasca visions of Peruvian shamans, Panda Bear's "Person Pitch" record, and good ol' fashion Fear.

www.myspace.com/blowdog
www.flickr.com/photos/stoicswine