Artist Statement 2024
My previous artist statement from late 2022 will stay up as a means of tracking my progress as an artist. However, here is an updated statement, more fitting to my current practice. It references Lucifer and the Earth, one of my creative computer programs. http://www.hazlingerartist.com/2024/03/creative-computer-programming-lucifer.html
The air, ice cold and deep blue, surrounds your being. You ponder the blue, shining marble in front of you, seemingly simple yet so complex, networks upon networks revealing themselves as you look further. Ripped wings flutter behind you as the bubbles of moisture in the air begin to rise. You are Lucifer, in the ninth circle of Hell, contemplating the earth that is teeming with life, warm in all senses of the word.
Every human contemplates their environment in their own unique way. In this way, we are not so different from the supernatural beings that are revered (and feared) by many. I consider my art practice a type of contemplation: a giant spectrum of opinions, media, and ideas. The media I specialize in includes creative computer programming, digital drawing and painting using an artist’s tablet and photoshop, pencil, ink, paint, writing, and performance. This list is not an indication of limitation; as contemplation often involves, my practice is forever changing and evolving as I learn. Above all, my artwork comes from a desire to learn as much as I can.
My work does not exist in a vacuum. I am constantly collaborating, most commonly with my significant other. Together, we have created a body of written and illustrated work with original characters. This includes a Dante’s Divine Comedy-like paradigm of Heaven, Hell, and Limbo, from which the creation of the character for Lucifer, the king of Hell came about.
Lucifer and the Earth is a creative computer program I devised from a digital drawing, using the language Visual Basic with a Winforms build to animate each element. Bubbles of moisture float and swirl around the dark king as the earth, represented as a blue marble, circles and sways. Lucifer is keeping close watch, able to see each earthly intricacy, determining where it would be strategic to lay his influence. Ahead of the looming holy war, Lucifer must find a way to win.
Both my computer programs and still works are crafted with the intention of the viewer becoming ensconced in the piece, even feeling as if they are in the character’s shoes, lost in the environment, a small break from reality. I intend to evoke this feeling not just to push my character designs or fictional paradigms, but largely to express what complex emotions that I hold that words simply cannot do justice. The feelings behind my work are ambivalent, but not in the way that they lack emotion; rather, that they are full of many contradicting feelings. This is my contemplation.
