One trip to the dentist had this then seven year old David DeVore questioning reality, added a hit of more than likely Lidocaine which hadn't yet worn off post visit during the ride home. Some would say the time during the global pandemic of 2020 was surreal. Unprecedented, humankind has never collectively experienced anything close to it. I do recall an oddness of energy the initial first few weeks and have to say I did in fact share David's sentiment, which probably at least partially explains my creation of the work, "THIS HIGH TO RIDE" by Pixellitist, part of the Quasi Surrealistic Era series. Surely my subconscious contributed to the fabrication of this dreamlike digital work or just maybe it was my attempt to conjure the beginning of a makeshift Black Mirror episode, a replacement for my entertainment as the series was paused during the pandemonium.

On a basic level access to new information especially images/video constantly reshapes our individual and collective realities daily. Nevermind the need to suss out 'fake news' regularly, it's often challenging to know what is 'real'; literally. It doesn't help that many of today's headlines read as if directly taken from The Onion, hence the use of the word quasi in the title of my series. The images border on a place which could actually be real. But life is but a dream, right?

"If Bezos worked the carnival in Kansa City." In a moment I'll reveal how this work gained this description.

Originally drafted for minting as a NFT (Non-fungible Token) on ETH blockchain the work is a combination of wildy unrelated images. In making these I wanted to incorporate original material sourced from the real world or by my own creation with found ones via Google. [Look at me I'm the quasi analog Midjourney!]

The background of the piece begins with a photo I took during my visit to the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park in Kansas City, Missouri back in 2017. I processed (datamoshed) the photo online via a site called PhotoMosh enabling the psychedelic adjacent effect. Again it’s a way for me to embed C.’s finger print in my work as Pixellitist. I was anonymous when I developed the moniker and started a digital art community the same year using social media platforms FB, IG and Twitter. When March of 2020’s black swan landed I didn’t paint for some time and leaned into making digital art while rediscovering much of the work I began making three years prior.

I no longer have the actual eyeball I scrubbed the web to use as heads replacing the ones of the figures in the series. I edited their colors individually to suit the overall image, provide contrast in the characters and ultimately did more color adjustments to finish the collage of items, tying it all together to make them look less collage-like. Also note the position of each eyeball in the work as the factor is important in telling each story.

Now on to the finale!

Now we unveil the puppeteer, wizard of Oz, boogeyman, man in the sky or whichever archetype you decide to anoint the character with in this piece. All depends on how you decode the imagery. The meaning is actually flexible with these works. The narrative you assign, well that’s up to you. 

That's all folks. Feel free to comment here with your interpretation and or ask questions about what you see, process or anything this post has brought to mind.

C. The Rich Artist

P.S. Framed art prints are available here.