Christos Kambolis
ARTIST STATEMENT
Some artists try to perfect a landscape or seascape so that the viewer feels like they are seeing what the artist is seeing. Some artists may draw a portrait of a person and try to communicate a person’s character and personality from a single image drawn instantly.
Like a landscape or a portrait, I communicate to a viewer an event that had an impact on my life using elements of pop art and cartoon art to pack multiple characters and events on a single canvas. Sometimes I insert drawings of myself so a viewer can see me as part of the action or see my reaction to the main subject of the drawing. The two-dimensional pop art style lets me combine multiple thoughts and tell a story on a single canvas. Fantastic images, like something I see in a dream can only be communicated and illustrated using these techniques. I also use this style and technique in the comic books that I have created and self-published. In all of my works, I mix images with words to tell a story, often my life experiences. I hope the audience of my exhibition will see and relate to my superhero fighting COVID, my perspective from going through emergency surgery, as well as nostalgic images in my drawing, focused on the MTV logo and its marketing images.
The theme for my show involves looking back on my life and inserting myself into scenes from my life as a cartoon in pop art style. Regarding formal elements, some of the models and sculptures I have made are 3-D/closed forms. Each piece has implied texture as I incorporate a lot of cardboard in my 3-D sculptures. Vibrant colors are essential to my artwork. Colors are vital to my artwork because they help to enhance the images the audience is looking at. They help to emphasize the audience’s perception of the imagery that I have created. I use caricature imagery to illustrate certain aspects of my life using the style of pop art. Regarding formal elements, some of the models and sculptures I will make are three-dimensional, and the forms are closed. Each artwork will have implied texture because a lot of cardboard will be utilized for my artwork for this exhibition. Who are the artists’ images and life experiences have influenced my work?
My influences come from reading comic books because I love to write and draw stories. Some of my favorite cartoonists are Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, John Pound, and Matt Furie, and I admire their work because they are very unique from one another and have had an impact on me as a budding cartoonist myself, especially with their documentaries. Matt Furie was in a documentary called Feels Good Man, which describes how he worked on an underground comic book series called Boy’s Club and when he wrote and illustrated children’s books. I have also written, illustrated, and published comic books myself in the recent past. On the other hand, Ed Roth loves to draw cartoon monsters and sell them at Drag events. I can relate to Ed Roth because I love to draw monsters as well. John Pound is an artist who worked on the Garbage Pail Kids card series that parodied the popular Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. Sometimes I like to create something that parodies a popular franchise.
As for the techniques that are important to my work and what my philosophy on art making is, specifically, principles of design, there will be a lot of contrast in all of my artwork because I use different materials and elements for each image I create. Unity and Variety will be important to my show because I bring these differences in my media together to create my artwork, and therefore, I add interest to each of my compositions. Emphasis by Contrast is another important factor in my artwork because the contrast between elements will help each composition to stand out individually to the audience.
