Michael DeForge
While I do not make many direct references to popular culture, my work is heavily influenced by the stories of new and old comic books. This influence is reflected in the subject matter of my drawings, cartoons that range from the cute and irrational to the cold and inhuman. It is my intent to explore drawing as an anti social act, and the chaos and absurdity of my compositions are used to instill similar notions of alienation and isolation.
My artwork makes use of recurring characters and symbols, as I intend to develop these forms into their own sort of visual language. I refer to Henry Heifetz’s article “The Anti-Social Act of Writing”:
“Stylistic innovation . . . is an anti-social act in a real sense but one that operates abstractly. Tampering with conventional language is a tampering with conventional communication.”-Henry Heifetz, “The Anti-Social Act of Writing”
