All about Bruce
First things first, I rely actively on my visual and implicit memory for constant, 24/7 engagement. Rather conveniently, I’m pretty stellar at providing context:
One day, when I was in pre-k, instead of going home, I ended up drawing around ten zoo-animals from memory, engulfed in my creative solitude. I don’t think I ever looked back from that moment on, as physically creating things and images became my number one headspace to be in, alone or around others.
In my formative years, the only thing that wasn’t mentally challenging for me was integrating my imagination into my reality [drawing/painting/ceramics]. I found respite in my inner world. I learned overtime how to express abstract, surreal, and complex feelings through creation. Having an artistic outlet convinced me there was much more for me to discover than solely the hardships I endured. More directly, creating art allowed me the choice to live my life with joy, despite obstacles presenting otherwise. Catharsis was the catalyst for my art to flourish, and creating was that relief.
As a young one, the people in my immediate family and social circles all went to/taught at an art school- and they all seemed so stressed out by it. I vowed to stay away from the arts due to the association of stress-induced turmoil in the lives of my mother, brother, and friends.
As an adult, I now know how to have a relationship with myself, as an artist. I have my NC public school art teachers to thank for the time and space to just exist and learn in that way, (s/o Mr. Robinson)!
Taking up space is an act that I tended to avoid, until now. With that being stated, I have become more nurturing to my craft as it develops, parallel to my living experience, of growing up. I must treat myself with as much care and compassion as I have for others. If it were not for the space my art takes up, I would not have the room to learn how to love myself.
more about bitchin’ bruce
I want others to feel understood when they look at my artwork. I offer honest and creative expression of the feelings and circumstances that we rarely have the words for, no matter how cryptic, obscure, or horrifying.
Thematically, my purpose behind using graphic and abstract surrealism lies in its capacity to conceptually resemble the many obscurities often found in the gray areas of human experience; that which constitutes the brain to be insurmountable.
Through the use of characterization, I hope to challenge the perspective on the nature of who and what it takes to be courageous, and how allowing oneself to be loved takes guts.
In my social world, inter/inner- connectedness matters more to me than the moral and social scapes pushed by American propaganda. Art needs more compassion to combat this.
It is in my hopes that my work will demand change on a local, systemic level by affecting the bottom line of what a community is truly capable of through honest and unnerving expression.
For this purpose, I hope my works elicit the response that art can incite viewers to unteach and unlearn the very same things that make them bitter.
