Meatyard

Artist Statement

I have lived a lot of life, and a lot of that living - both work and personal experience - comes through in aspects of my art. In particular, my work as a graphic designer has greatly influenced both the way I develop concepts and the method by which I execute them. I work in both digital and traditional media, and nearly every piece I create starts its life as a digital composition before being recreated in physical form.

Layers of cut paper and a combination of watercolor, ink, gouache, and colored pencil go into every piece I create, and I often include found ephemera such as old maps and sheet music to achieve my desired effects.

In my art, I embrace the ridiculous, marrying my sense of humor with my passion for rendering detail and flair for the unexpected. I want to make people laugh, and maybe even make them think but most of all, I seek to entertain. My influences range from Johannes Vermeer and Hieronymus Bosch to Arnold Lobel and the Garbage Pail Kids, with my artistic intent pointed somewhere between existential crisis and nostalgia for a world that doesn't exist.

Biography

I am an artist, illustrator, and graphic designer living and working from my home studio in Historic Roser Park in St. Petersburg, Florida. Professionally, I wear many hats: freelance artist and illustrator, art director of a New Jersey design studio, and creative director for an independent record label, Friend Club Records.

Art has always been a central part of my life, but while I was encouraged from a young age by my grandfather, artist Jerry Meatyard, personal circumstances prevented me from pursuing art full-time for many years. I left home at 15, married at 17, divorced at 22, and spent the next two decades raising my children as a single parent. In my 20s and 30s, I studied visual art and anthropology at Eckerd College, attending class in the evenings while working multiple jobs to support my family.

Over the years, I have turned my hand to everything from foodservice to cemetery monument design, but my primary vocation for the last 15 years has been graphic design. It's only now in my early 40s that I finally have the freedom to commit the time and effort to creating and exhibiting the art I have always wanted to make. In the last several years, my work has been included in a number of group exhibitions, and, in pursuit of my life's other great passion music I create art and design for album covers and other media in the music industry.

Exhibition History (CV)