ARTIST STATEMENT

BIRDS & WORDS. MOTION & EMOTION.

SURREAL + CONCEPTUAL = SYMBOLIC REALISM.

All my artwork hopefully empowers our hearts and minds. I explore concepts like achieving psychological wellbeing, strength, community building, and striving for environmental justice.

My creative process begins with raw sketched notes inspired by treasures I gather while exploring the city and hiking in nature like found street signs, autumn leaves and bird flight feathers. My notes grow into sketches with inspiration from song lyrics, research into endangered bird species, and references to cultural symbolic icons like Aztec bird warrior headdresses and nuclear test explosion shockwaves. Then as I paint, I embark on a soulful journey weaving it all together into a visionary narrative.

I bring to life a universe populated by mythological anthropomorphic characters including triumphant peacock phoenix people and healing heart people. These characters have relatable expressions and haunting gestures.

I further the narratives by painting bold poetic graffiti and intense dynamic imagery, techniques I have honed creating street art murals and graphic novels. My compositions evolve with textured layers of mixed media, with symbolically expressive color palettes, and with a painterly array of brushstrokes.

This category of art has a rich inheritance from both the surreal and conceptual art traditions, and is represented by the Symbolic Realism Arts movement which I founded. I encourage you to follow @NoahXArts on Instagram to find inspiration from my artwork and to connect with a growing community of contemporary Symbolic Realist artists.