Artist Statement
A voyeur is defined as a person who derives gratification from observing the naked activities of others, especially from a secret vantage point. Watching the neighbors having a fight, a car collision, or looking into the window of someone else's home, and watching any of the numerous Reality shows are voyeuristic experiences. Sexual voyeurism, in particular, is a morbid curiosity experienced socially through provocative images on magazine covers, on television, and the Internet.

Most people have an emotional reaction to images deemed socially taboo: a silhouette changing in a house window, a couple making out in the park, or seeing the cover of an adult magazine. My work illustrates situations such as these to manipulate or provoke viewers to bring their own repressed feelings and thoughts to the surface. My strategy is to do this with a sense of humor to make these feelings and thoughts easier to handle.

I have employed a bug-like, cartoon character named PurBee as an avatar for viewers with these emotional reactions. PurBee is a manifestation of my own naivete and detachment from the sexual world. Like a child, this bug is curious about sex and wants to understand it's own attraction to it, because it is a cartoonish being with few physical commonalities to humans, it can never experience the events it watches. Given the bug's diminutive stature and toy-like qualities, the viewer's reaction to its voyeuristic presence in these paintings is ideally not repulsive, but empathic.

As a viewer, I respond to art that can be understood without having to decode its meaning, that is easily understood. To accomplish this with my own work, my techniques are highly stylized, comprised of bright colors, outlines, and featuring a cartoon bug. Although the humans and objects are not fully detailed, the viewer has no trouble recognizing the subjects. Eric Fischl once wrote, "Beackmann's Departure: [it is] a work of art whose meanings were all inside it. Its references weren't art references. They were cultural---all those things that belong to the general culture." In the case of my paintings, there are numerous pop culture references.

My broader goals are undermining socially constructed norms (sexual, social, and/or personal) and making people either cringe or laugh. It doesn't concern me which reaction they have, just so long as they are able to comprehend and connect with my work.

All work presented is Copyright © to Michael Church
Unless otherwise stated