justin storms Statement

The serene, post-apocalyptic tundra conjures feelings of uncertainty, tension, and fragility. A place where hunger, death, and frost-bite are ever-present. My drawings are depictions of a utopia that is both picturesque and horrific. Each world is made using pencil grounds rubbed into ivory-colored paper, which transmits a brooding yet ephemeral quality. The surface tends to be soft and atmospheric juxtaposing the gritty nature of the narrative story line. Symbols of masculinity like the rugged sailor, ravenous whale, and whaling ship are often balanced with a feminine element. The waving sail and the Leviathan’s tail twists like a burlesque dancer's hand or a peacock fan making an erotic gesture. The soft glow of the surface is reminiscent of a dream or the face of a silent film actress.

In essence, I use whaling imagery to explore desires and fears of war, sex, tyranny, overpopulation, consumption, cults, global warming, social rituals, repression, and extinction. Much like the maps of early explorers, the society I envision is seen at a microcosmic level. Humans are merely parasites and nature its host. These depictions perhaps allude to the Freudian concept of destrudo: the destructive impulse to destroy both oneself and everything else. This world could also be seen as a fusing of Bosch and early-Japanese landscape painting. Although in this case, man is not living harmoniously in a serene landscape, and Bosch's "Garden of earthly delights" has frozen over, God is no longer present, and every sinner carries a harpoon.