Rust Storm – Cycle Soup – Psycho-Comic

by Jeff S. Mann

Rust Storm

Psycho-Comic

Cycle Soup 

Artist statement

While a resident artist at a college in 2005, Jeff discovered car parts which are mass-produced with incredible variety and built-in complexity, and they have since become the main material in his work. While still incorporating car parts and car-based patterns, recent explorations in the last year and a half have led him in unexpected directions.

Prior to March 2020, the artist worked with metal almost exclusively, welding, grinding, cutting and hammering the material to achieve the desired effect. But during the pandemic, with only online options available to show his work, the artist began assembling “constructions” using sculpture, paintings and masks that he created. With photography and digital manipulation, the artist’s work has been rapidly evolving. Drawing on his infatuation with graphic novels, Jeff has been adding text to his work and creating “covers” for an imaginary comic series.

Digital manipulation fits in well with the artist’s creative process. “The Response Creative Process” begins with no preconceived narrative or image in mind. Through a kind of dance with car parts, he follows the ghost of a direction and focuses on it to bring, in the case of a mask, a character into being.

The artist believes there are too many cars in the world and cars have affected our aesthetic, making it difficult for us to be cognizant of the great damage being done by our addiction to automotive transportation.

Jeff lives in Fort Erie Ontario, Canada across the river from Buffalo. After 28 years in Maine as a production potter and a sculptor, Jeff has been steadily moving West, first to upstate New York then Kingston, Ontario and now to the Niagara River. Somewhere along the way, he discovered car parts and it’s been all downhill from there. Strongest influences: Hundertwasser, Schiele, this amazing planet. www.jeffmannart.com