This artist has done a series of paintings which deal with his childhood love for action figures. Included in many of his paintings are some of his actual childhood action figures in shadow boxes or small display cases. They are rather nice paintings, and I do like the inclusion of the actual figures; but our opinions and attitudes towards figures are different. In his artist statement, he talks about how as a child these toys were magnificent things which he worshiped. But after growing up, he doesn't see them in this amazing light and has tried to re-capture that feeling in his work. This comes out clear in the positioning of his paintings/toy displays. He has them posed in almost a coffin or museum manner.
I see toys as living things for the most part. Not truly, biologically living of course; but definitely alive. I see personality in toys, sometimes even that which the character they represent may not have. A human can give life to anything they want to in their mind; though for some this happens more regularly or with more force than others. When I was younger, I would even give personalities and life to rocks or random pieces of plastic jewelry I thought deserved a story or appealed to me.
His work has brought out a realization in me though. I may value toys right now more than he does, but many of them I do not move. They are proudly on my shelves, and many of them can move, but I haven't repositioned them or played with them very often lately. I hope in future works in this course I can let them stretch their legs again. I hope they are not mad at me.
I know what you mean, I swear my Dino Rider toys had a life of their own when I was growing up. I still remember playing on the side of my bed making roaring noises. Oh, good times. Does anyone actually remember the toys and cartoon they were based off?! And yes, the artist really did capture the magical aura that we see them in as youngsters. I too had fun with the foot clan! I guess it really does suck to grow up at times.
ReplyDeleteOh shoot! I just noticed the T-Rex Dino Rider drawing on his site.
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ReplyDeleteI conquer! Especially the toys I really loved playing with as a child, they're so charged with personality it's like a whole other world exists. We have this super damaged, really old teddy bear named Sabastian who I always treat with the greatest reverence to this day, like a wise old man living in the top of the closet. It's interesting thought, because you kind of have to build a relationship with them before that happens, otherwise they're purely inanimate. I always thought my toys came to life after I left the house when I was little, and so when I saw toy story for the first time I was like "see! I was right!" (there was a typo in the comment I posted above and the compulsive perfectionist in my head made me fix it).
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