‘Day In & Day Out’ by Sean Norvet
Do we become who we are from everything we absorb and experience in our lives? I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of this. How much impact on your personality can the objects, landscapes, and people in your environment have on you? What did I take in on the bus, driving the freeway, or in the takeout line at Taco Bell? What if we could take away your physical identity and replace it with all of your passions, hatreds, humor, and mundane daily rituals? What would that pulsing mass make you look like?
This is the idea that has been pushing my work for some time. How could I represent the traits and characteristics of a figure through what they have absorbed in their lifetime, or even just a day? In our digitized, algorithm-driven world, we have whole universes of information and entertainment at our fingertips. I think this can create a whirlwind of conflicting emotions and easily deposit us over the edge into a buzzing, screaming, blaring information abyss of flashing lights, animated gifs and ultimately, numbness.
As an artist, I’m visually fascinated by the amount of contrasting and clashing elements that we consume in a single day without a thought. How can that make you feel? How did it change your mind? How did it change where you are physically located? How did it affect what you ate that day?
The so called New Media has chopped how we consume culture; especially visual art. In addition to contrasting different objects and feelings, I like investigating the contrast between different techniques of art that I value, both the high and the low. I love the tension created between the strong, graphic line work you would find in a cartoon or comic, versus the detailed, technically rendered quality of a realist painter. The clash between the two opposing styles is something that always excites and challenges me, and to be honest, a lot of my work makes me laugh; that’s my intention. That said, I pursue the work itself with a lot of intensity. I’m always experimenting and introducing new elements; oil on panel is my medium, but I’ll use airbrush, spray paint, chalk and I love introducing sculptural elements.
A lot of my work is about food, yes. Why? Why not? Everybody loves food.
