Since 2013 I have been visually exploring the idea that technology has increased the probability that the actions and opinions of seemingly insignificant people and/or events can have unanticipated consequences that sometimes destroy lives. The images and text below are my reflections on my creative process over the past several years and many images are still in progress. This series is called The Butterfly Effect: Version 3.
If you work with Photoshop you will probably understand how I am doing this. If you do not, just think of each image as a separate painting. There is no artspeak or Photoshop nerding below because I taught myself to use Photoshop and have only learned what I need to get the effects I want.
Working with digital files and transitioning back and forth between traditional graphite drawings, acrylic or mixed media paintings and digital files has allowed me to save images at certain points that seem significant, or that I have not resolved, while continuing to explore alternate possibilities for that same image/idea.
In early 2015, I made a little doodle on a scrap of paper (above left) about a hoodie wearing hooligan (Icarus Elck) pulling the pin from a grenade. I liked it, so I scanned it and began drawing on it with my 13" Wacom Cyntiq using Photoshop. I took some reference pictures of myself in the same pose (see above lower right).
I was not happy with the drawing of the butterfly, so I removed it. I wanted the hoodie character to be an "Everyman" or everyone (androgynous) character. I integrated the Leonardo Study Of An Angel into my drawing. For me, that angel represented the feminine aspect of the persona as well as suggested that this person was not just simply evil and/or malevolent. Upon further reflection, I realized that anyone that brings new information into the world is also dangerous to the status quo and can potentially blow things up in a way that is eventually positive..
I slowly introduced color.
Despite the comment above, I was jokingly calling my character the Unabomber because a person wearing a hoodie and holding a bomb reminded me of him and also because when I was in college, I resembled that sketch.
I considered emphasizing the character's psychological turmoil by layering the image with a tornado painting I had done (Above right).
Then I reintroduced the butterfly. For me, the butterfly represents the liminal space between idea and action. It is the pause for reflection and is the conscious moment of awareness. It is also the symbol of transformation and, obviously refers to the title The Butterfly Effect.
Unfortunately, at the time I was making this particular version, I hit a point where I was seriously questioning the sanity of about half of my fellow Americans. At that time, I was not able or even willing to try to understand their motivations and actions. The color in the image above represents that overwhelming anger and rage.
I felt like there was a beast welling up inside of me, and I digitally modified an acrylic painting of mine called Acceptance (pictured above left), to represent that idea. Acceptance reminded me of the parasitoid stage of the xenomorph in the movie Alien. It also reminded me of the red knight in the movie The Fisher King and the vagina dentata in the movie Teeth.
As women marched on Washington, I imagined a grenade exploding into millions of butterflies with razor blade wings. I wanted to create a beautiful explosion and stumbled onto the effect pictured above left by inverting the butterfly wing layer, which made it almost unrecognizable. The image above right is that same layer switched back to normal.
As I mentioned, I taught myself to use Photoshop and I am sure there are lots of easier ways to do things. But I just play around until I get the effect I want or stumble onto something better.
I then inverted most of the image to explore the idea of a literal visual opposite of the character.
One day, I happened to turn off one layer and, forgetting the acceptance image was in the stack, produced the image above. That little "accident" took me in a direction I had not intended. Once I saw that "the beast" had essentially become a "headdress" or mask through which my character experienced the world, I spent quite a bit of time separating the "beast" or maybe "shaman" from the background.
The image above is the point I finished separating the Beast/Priest from the background. I had forgotten about the grenade and was focused on creating a left hand.
I do not know why, but I decided to use a poorly drawn hand doodle (above left) that was in my sketch book.
I digitally painted it (click the image above to see middle image), but it looked weird. I know, I know. You are probably thinking; "That is weird and nothing before that was weird?".
Anyway, the hand needed to be on fire, so I made fire (click the image above to see the far right image).
I placed skeletons like the ones above inside the body of the Beast Priest.
I thought that I was finished with this series until I realized that along the way I had dropped (forgotten about) the grenade.
The remaining three images below are in progress and represent my attempt to make a smooth and "logical" transition between pulling the pin on the grenade and the hand being open and on fire by working backwards. I have not worked on them for over a year, but they are calling on me to finish them.
The creation of anything implies that there was an impetus or problem motivating the maker. I am trying to understand my place in this crazy world, and the images I create are my way of thinking through making instead of thinking through words in my head.
When I began this image, I thought I knew what it was about. I would tell people that Icarus Elck was each of us (Icarus is the fallen son and Everyman is each of us) and in this image, I represented that frustration and rage toward what we cannot control or what we fear. I would say that the butterfly was that tiny event, or moment of clarity that would bring us to complete focus on this moment right now, and the subsequent realization that we are at a point of no return. Do we blow ourselves up, or do we put the pin back in the grenade?
After many years of thinking about this (because I am a bit slow), I cannot honestly say that this image represents everyone. I could not possibly know what anyone else really thinks.
It represents me. I am Icarus Elck. I am the fallen son. I am just another human being like you (I hope : ).
Maybe you can see it, but I cannot…yet. Where is the grenade and where am I?
