I've been following this guy's sculptural work for a while. The aesthetic is beautiful and strange to me...I love visual clutter, I love when multiple objects become a sort of monochromatic texture...

Imminent Utopia by Kris Kuksi.

It's not fashionable anymore, this sort of decorative-romanesque opulence. So much more of the current visual style is a sort of clean Modernism, possibly mixed with a retro-winking-ironic ultra-graphic thing. And there is an  adolescent-darkness taking-itself-too-seriously angst to these. Reminds me of high school and Morissey and Joy Division and NIN.  Posing  for (retrospecitively lolarious photos) in cemeteries in our finest black goth gear. Which is basically what you do when you are, uh, goth-identified - hang out in vintage clothes stores and coffee shops, pretend to understand tarot cards and I Ching, and most importantly, pose for VERYSERIOUS DAMMITIMEANIT images in cemeteries ("It's about death, you know. And, uh, not being understood. And death.") (SKULLS! Baby dolls without eyes!...BWAHHH!!!)

                You know? No sense of humor. :)
          
But I love these. They are humorous and whimsical and unsettling and delicate. I love the scaffolding that covers much of them, and the strange shifts in scale. I love the found-object quality. They hybridize the Baroque splendor of a cathedral with the dark nightmarish hallucinatory quality of Hieronymus Bosch crossed with Terry Gilliam crossed with Tim Burton. They evoke for me some of the best and strangest of Renaissance-era Christian art (bodies cast into purgatory, anyone?) as well as Indian or Tibetan Buddhist artwork. Untangling the imagery is part of the fun. 

       Plus: I'm into this weird Victorian clockworks-thing at the moment in my own work. It's nice to see where other folks go with it. 

             Here's a bit of his artist statement. There's so much in between the lines here. I mean, does the Midwestern alcoholic-stepfather bleakness stuff hit anyone else as completely interesting and relevant??  :

                Born March 2, 1973, in Springfield Missouri and growing up in neighboring Kansas, Kris spent his youth in rural seclusion and isolation along with a blue-collar, working mother, two much-older brothers and an absent father. Open country, sparse trees, and alcoholic stepfather, perhaps paved the way for an individual saturated in imagination and introversion. His fascination with the unusual lent to his macabre art later in life. The grotesque to him, as it seemed, was beautiful. Reaching adulthood his art blossomed and created a breakthrough of personal freedom from the negative environment experienced during his youth. He soon discovered his distaste for the typical American life and pop culture, feeling that he has always belonged to the ‘Old World’. Yet, Kris’ work is about a new wilderness, refined and elevated, visualized as a cultivation emerging from the corrupt and demoralized fall of modern-day society. A place were new beginnings, new wars, new philosophies, and new endings exist. In personal reflection, he feels that in the world today much of mankind is oftentimes frivolous and fragile, being driven primarily by greed and materialism. He hopes that his art exposes the fallacies of Man, unveiling a new level of awareness to the viewer. 

              Okay. Nope, not getting the whole fallacy-of-Man thing. And usually I think of people who "belong to the Old World", self-described, as generally taking themselves a little too seriously, in an eight-sided dice kind of way.  But the power of the imagination as escapist and expressive fantasy, the opulence of the work when set against the flat Midwestern suburban landscape - wow. Powerful, amazing stuff. Plus, the guy is materially extremely proficient, skillful, and sensitive. Interesting work.

 Kris Kuksi has a great website. Check out his sculptures: http://kuksi.com/artworks/sculptures.

<sigh>Ohhhh-kay. 'Cause you were SO good listening to my bloggy, bloggy thoughts. And I did set this up and ask for it with my whole Morrisey-rant. Here's me at nineteen, outside the Amherst Theater at the Rocky Horror Picture Show.