SEAN STARWARS

ARTIST STATEMENT: increasingly, I have found myself drawn to the modern mythologies of American Advertising and Cultural Sterotypes. My fascination with these make believe worlds, in particular the role of the Native Americans in the history of advertising with my largely pop/expressionistic printmaking sensibilities have enabled me to create an arena to play out any number of fantasies.

Star Wars, Mountain Dew, Video Games, Phillip Guston, Neil Blender and Jean dubuffet are among my influences. My goal is to freate an environment where the various icons of consumer culture can simultaneously react to one another and serve as points of communality to the viewer, thus allowing me the opportunity to deliver whatever message I feel is relevant. I often choose the format of the largescale woodcut because it best suits my energy charged, caffeine induced, aggressive approach to image making.

While my first love is the relief print, of recent years I've found it necessary to expand to other methods of image making. My assemblages, in particular have begun to benefit from cross pollination of screenprinting, digital imaging and construction. While using the assemblages as "Sketchbooks" to work out ideas for future woodcuts, I also use them to blur the line between new and old, authentic and artificial. I do that by combining true antiques, reproduction, reissues, actual advertisements, scanned ads, and screenprints among other cultural debris.

I consider my lithographs, screenprints and digital images as stand alone images that also function as support material for the woodcuts. Whatever media I am engaged in, my primary concern is to create a strong visual infused with a sense of satirical humor.