Interview with Artist D.C. Maddox - Part II
When we last spoke, you mentioned we’re living in a period of rapid technological change and uncertainty. What were you referring to?
Back in the ‘70s there were a lot of fears regarding pollution, overpopulation, and nuclear war. Now those same fears have come roaring back to life, and we don’t appear to have a clue what to do about any of it.
Then there’s the way the Internet, social media, and AI are transforming our culture, often in very unexpected ways. Technology and science have given us a lot of amazing advances, and yet they seem unable to give us what we really need. In many ways, we’re more disconnected, more alone, and more afraid than ever before.
It’s only natural for all of this to come out in art.
What are your thoughts regarding AI art?
I dislike the term because AI doesn’t create art, artists create art.
Art is a form of human expression, and it’s one of the most important ways we communicate ideas, stir emotions, and affect change. AI is unable to do any of those things because it’s a statistical model, not a conscious being capable of feelings or of connecting with us in any truly significant way. Simply put, AI has nothing to say. It’s a tool, like Photoshop.
Do you use AI as a tool in your own work?
Not at present. I have experimented with it so that I may understand what it is, but beyond that I see no compelling reason to allow it into my creative space. Even when I work digitally, I don’t utilize any sort of automation because I prefer to paint everything by hand, just as I would using traditional media. I don’t want a set of data points influencing my concepts because once you give up creative control to a machine, there’s a danger the human could be reduced to rendering details. There’s nothing meaningful in that.
How has your work changed over time?
An artist needs new experiences in order to form ideas. Experimental painting brings something out in us, but it also leads to some very messy failures. Accepting that failure is a necessary part of the process of growing as an artist was not something which came easily to me.
The figures in your work appear to be suffering in some way. Is that a conscious decision?
My landscapes tend to be desolate wastes or forbidden places of some sort. Most traditional art depicts beautiful figures which are in harmony with their environment. But my characters and monsters are usually at war with their environment or being subsumed by it.
Perhaps that’s a more accurate reflection of the way our world really is.
Untitled painting in 2019
What do you think inspires the kind of chaos found in your paintings?
There’s violence and chaos in all of us.
I find things like blood, bones, horns, and fungus fascinating to paint, and these sometimes morph into weapons or other threatening elements. I especially enjoy creating organic objects that are ambiguous and difficult to tell what they’re made of.
As I explained earlier, surrealists strive to include ideas or impulses from a subconscious level. So ultimately, we’re painting things which are, at least to some degree, a part of us. I saw some violent things during my time in the military, and perhaps I wouldn’t have anything interesting to say as an artist had I not had those experiences.
You seem to have a particular fascination with fetuses and babies. Why is that?
I get this question a lot.
Babies have always been a powerful image regarding birth, life, and death. They tap into our deepest emotions and also have a strong association with an afterlife. How we see them probably says a lot about our dreams and fears.
They’ve also always been somewhat metaphorical figures in art. For instance, there’s subtle messaging in the way medieval artists chose to portray babies as being more akin to small adults than actual babies. Fetuses are another story altogether. While images of babies are very common throughout the history of western art, it seems there’s almost a taboo regarding the depiction of fetuses. Now why would that be? That’s the kind of question I like to explore.
There’s danger and mystery surrounding the babies and fetuses which inhabit my paintings. They could be a type of technological homunculi.
Are they symbolic of something deeper?
Perhaps, but I think interpretation is best left up to the viewer.
If someone tells me my work has a meaning which I never intended, then that’s probably an indication I must be doing something right.
How do you deal with the response of people who view your art as being quite dark?
I won’t reject that interpretation. However, I will add that there’s nothing wrong with exploring the darker aspects of our nature, as way down under the roots of our subconscious is the place where a lot of our most interesting mythologies and associations live.
While these things might be seen as morbid or even obscene, there’s a kind of truth and hidden beauty to them. If I can’t find the beauty in something, then I won’t paint it.
Is this what you mean when you say the visions and truths expressed in surrealism are more real than actual reality?
There are lot of different kinds of truth. There’s emotional truth, scientific truth, political truth, religious truth… A painting can be a beautiful lie and yet still be true.
