“Basically...there is only absurdity, and more absurdity.”
—Albert Camus
“Only by living absurdly is it possible to break out of
this infinite absurdity.”
—Julio Cortazar
“I laugh at absurdity the hardest, then stories, then
observations, then bearded men on roller-skates.”
—TJ
Miller
Ian Little has a thing
for bread.
Bread and demons.
Now, demons are
well-established in Little’s artwork. Drawn with a certain malnourished
muscularity, Little’s demons are often smooth and bald, with large, vacant eyes
and powerfully angular jaws wedged open by jutting rows of massive, decaying
teeth—think Iggy Pop, jaundice and strung out on meth while also living with
alopecia. Anyone familiar with Little’s artwork has likely grown accustomed to
the demon presence, much like a Dali acolyte has similarly grown accustomed to
his use of ants or a melting timepiece.
But this bread thing is
different. This is new.
And, frankly, it’s a bit
weird, even by Little’s standards—which is saying something.
This is the same guy who
illustrated a cat being catapulted over a tiny gaggle of bewildered turkeys, drew
a blue, tentacled alien giving presents to an anthropomorphized pear, and gave
us a nose picking purple zombie with a fascination for two-legged goats.
All weird shit. Yet
somehow not as weird as his use of bread.
It’s an issue of
context, really. Bread, considered in isolation, is not controversial; however,
bread considered in relationship to its appearance in Little’s artwork elicits
questions—questions which, when considered from a distance, can seem ridiculous.
Take Breadcat, for example. Why is the cat’s
head stuck in a slice of bread? What kind of bread is it? Does that even
matter? Why does the cat appear so
happy? Did he eat his way through the bread eventually getting it stuck on his
head? In other words, was this accidental? Was the bread placed on the cat’s
head by the pink, human-like monstrosity that also happens to be holding and
admiring said cat? If so, why? Does the bread represent mankind’s inability to
walk back the madness of our present condition? And so on and so on and so on.
Deeper and deeper down the rabbit-hole, until the search for answers inevitably
shifts away from the content of the artwork to the artist himself.
Who is Ian Little and
what is he doing to my brain?
* *
*
Picture
this:
The
Titanic is sinking. The scene is chaotic. Muffled, sputtering screams rise and
fall with the sea. Rivets pop and iron beams twist and fold, groaning all the
while. Large husks of doomed ship fan out from the point of impact, creating an
expanding field of bobbing wreckage.
Balancing precariously
on floating debris is a gigantic bottle of Maple Syrup. Maple Syrup has a face.
Maple Syrup has arms. And Maple Syrup is freaking the fuck out.
Why?
Because Eggo Waffle—the
Jack to her Rose—is slipping through her fingers.
Desperate, Maple Syrup
yells, “I’ll never leggo!”
Yup.
That’s how Ian Little’s
mind works.
* *
*
“Some of it is just
sheer absurdity,” concedes Little with a slight chuckle. “When I was a kid, I
really liked the movies and television shows I’d watch with my dad. It was a
lot of fantasy and sci-fi, but also a lot of British comedy.”
Monty Python, in
particular, made a lasting impression. Through Python, Little came to
appreciate how something could be side-splittingly funny and also serve as
pertinent social commentary. It was all a matter of balance—knowing when to
push the profane and when to heap the folly.
Little refers to this
approach as the “spoonful-of-sugar method.” Slather the bitter pill in honey. Stick
a rose in dog shit. If you’re going to draw a menacingly large cyclopean
behemoth, have it receiving flowers from a teddy bear. “I want people to see
something ugly and find it cute,” he explains. “I want them to have empathy for
the pitiful creature.”
In other words, Little
is a bit of a softy—a champion of the mutant hybrids and feral underdogs. But more
than that, he’s a genuine absurdist, well-practiced with a keen sense of social
responsibility. “I think a joke is an important way to deliver a message and to
make people look at reality less seriously, if only to then realize which part
of reality is really grave.”
However—and this is
important—Little is not an instigator. He does not fan the flames. Instead, he
leads you to the burning house and ask, “How does this make you feel?”
Early in our
conversation, Little says something which brings me pause.
“You can’t separate
decency from policy or law or even art.”
My instinct is to disagree; however, technically, he is right. In fact, there
is legal precedent. In 1998, the US Supreme Court upheld a ruling regarding National Endowment for the Arts v. Karen
Finely, whereby a ‘decency’ clause had become a focal point of contention.
Without delving too deeply into specifics, ‘decency’ as defined by the
government, was found to be inseparable from the production of art and,
therefore, seen as a disqualifying agent to artists applying for an NEA grant
whose artwork was deemed ‘indecent.’ But Little isn’t concerned with NEA grants.
His notion of decency as it relates to law, policy, and art is far more
humanistic.
“Decency calls on you to
act in a way that isn’t always convenient,” says Little. “If the only reason
you don’t run into other cars is because the law tells you you can’t, then you
lack decency.”
This is what fascinates
me most about Ian Little.
Lurking beneath
everything—beneath all the absurd imagery and shameless puns—is a really decent
guy.
More than that even, a good guy.
On the night we spoke,
Little was dropping off some artwork for an upcoming show. With him were his
wife and 7 month old daughter. As I approached to make my introduction, Little
held his little girl on his knee. He looked happy, peaceful. This was a guy in
his element.
A father and family man
before all else.
* *
*
If anyone's Facebook page could accurately be considered a fluid extension of self, it's Little's.
He’s prolific. Every day brings new work—some of it finished, some not—the stage of completion having absolutely no bearing on his willingness to share. From a spectator’s prospective, it’s a very inviting and endearing practice. We are afforded an opportunity to see everything—warts and all—from a work’s inception on through to its finishing touches. And perhaps, in a sense, through this method of inclusion, much like watching a child grow and come into its own, a work can become as much ours as it is his.
He’s prolific. Every day brings new work—some of it finished, some not—the stage of completion having absolutely no bearing on his willingness to share. From a spectator’s prospective, it’s a very inviting and endearing practice. We are afforded an opportunity to see everything—warts and all—from a work’s inception on through to its finishing touches. And perhaps, in a sense, through this method of inclusion, much like watching a child grow and come into its own, a work can become as much ours as it is his.
And
maybe Little knows this.
Maybe
that’s his intent, his way of inviting us into his absurd world, by showing us
its bones.
Whether we accept his
invitation or not is another thing altogether, and something Little doesn’t pay
much mind. “I’ll keep doing what I do because I like doing it” insists Little.
“That’s all there is to it.”
“You get to paint your
life anyway you want. Why not make it colorful in a way that makes sense to
you?”
