Stephen Tompkins

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Tompkins Stephen Tompkins (born October 4, 1971, Cleveland, Ohio) is an American artist and animator based in Southern California. He grew up in Avon Lake, Ohio, near Cleveland. Tompkins' work has been exhibited in numerous galleries throughout the United... [more]

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Tompkins Stephen Tompkins (born October 4, 1971, Cleveland, Ohio) is an American artist and animator based in Southern California. He grew up in Avon Lake, Ohio, near Cleveland. Tompkins' work has been exhibited in numerous galleries throughout the United States and Europe since 1997. His work was exhibited in BLK/MRKT Gallery's Artist Annual in 2007[1]. His work has been exhibited alongside such artists as Daniel Johnston (in Austin, Texas) and Ron English & Steven Hopwood-Lewis ("Melodic Inversions & Contrary Motions" exhibition in Dallas).[2] Stephen Tompkins in his studio His work has appeared in publications including LA Weekly[3], Raw Vision, New American Paintings[4] and Juxtapoz. Some of his work was published in the book BLK/MRKT TWO[5] by Die Gestalten Verlag. His animated short, Gummymorph, appears in the film Freak Out in Cucamonga, a documentary about the early studio years of Frank Zappa. In February 2009, he released a Digital-8 collection of 13 music videos that he directed, filmed and produced of Daniel Johnston filmed in Johnston's hometown of Waller, Texas. The videos and mp3s were released as digital downloads under the name "Daniel Johnston at Home LIVE"[6] PRESS: “What would happen if you took classic 1920's cartoons and Ren and Stimpy episodes, chewed them up with shades of primary colors, and then horcked the whole thing onto a canvas? Nothing as good as Stephen Tompkins' work, for sure, though that's exactly what his pieces remind me of. It's like an abstract celebration of cartoon body parts in a roiling pop orgy. And yet they still remain sparse enough to seem muted. Now I have the urge to watch cartoons. And porn. Although it's pretty difficult to know if that's caused by Tompkins' work or just standard Tuesday morning libido." - Brad Martin, contributing writer for Juxtapoz “Stephen Tompkins is a shockingly versatile artistic chameleon, working in drawing, painting, 3-D digital design, animation, music, and sculpture. His fittingly titled show Transmogrifications (the word refers to the act of changing from one form into another) includes several shape-shifting examples of his most recent work. Regardless of his medium du jour, Tompkins' surreal, explosive, and whimsical aesthetic vision is the thread that neatly ties it all together.” - Heather Silva for Flavorpill LA “Tompkins' blobs and thingamabobs are closely related to those of various fine artists, especially squish-master Paul Henry Ramirez, not to mention Nina Bovasso, who large-scale watercolors look like medieval manuscripts painted with Mr. Bubble. It's no accident that Tompkins studied Semiotics, the science of verbal and visual symbols. Whether inside or out, though, Tompkins' paintings and drawings here are fascinating, especially when he combines a human figure with trippy, drippy abstract fantasias. 'Friedrich and Siggy', for instance, starts with vintage engraved portraits of Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Niezsche, but replaces their heads with bubbling, swirling visual nonsense. Delightfully, "Friedrich sports discreet Mickey Mouse Club ears.” - from "Affirmations, Apparitions, Diaries & Dreams" by Douglas Max Utter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer [show less]