OLOGY welcomes the cold season wondering…
Where is the winter wonderland we were promised?
It’s a good question.
In many parts of the world, this Winter has been among the more mild.
Is it El Niño?
Is it Global Warming?
We think it might be the super-hot artwork from this issue’s cover artist, Joseph Larkin.
To find out, we asked him what it was all about:
“I attempt to create an impression whose primary objective is to show the viewer a glimpse into other worlds; sometimes Utopian, other times dark and formidable, always possible if not entirely likely. The rooms, landscapes, and skies are often places I have seen filtered through the meat grinder of a rabid imagination or floating in the thick primal fluid of dreams. I commonly populate these environments with souls capable of the dooms of loneliness, pride for its own sake, the appreciation of beauty, the fear of the unknown and the joy of love.
I delineate the human face and form as often as I do for their beauty, variation, and unlimited expressive potential. Their ability to sing a song to which anyone can understand the lyrics is often the fulcrum of my attempts at emphatic communication. The inclusion of other animals in the images serve as a reminder of our ancient human origins, and as homage to the other creatures that we share the world with today. We are not their betters, just another species among them, capable of existing in harmony if we choose them as family rather than as biological subordinates.
The foundation of my work is submerged in symbolism - mythological, literary, and personal. Upon this foundation I construct an order of visions that are meant to show my feelings of our world and the results of my blind meanderings into the small places.
So what of art, then? Art is not a privilege exclusive to the elite ranks of so-called artists. It is for, in, and because of everyone. Paintings, sculptures and songs are bought and sold but art is not a commodity, art is not a servant to any purpose. The artist is the servant to Art. It has never been a mere expression of the creative microcosm and it is not limited to a succession of gimmicks, periods, or dated movements. Art is a living, throbbing pulse that screams in cadence in every living thing in the universe, it is insanity and healing. Art is the Truth.”
You can see more of Larkin’s art on his website http://www.josephlarkinart.com and on deviantART.
