Browsing by Author "Hyden, John Garland"

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Moods, attitudes, and erections
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1988) Hyden, John Garland
My art is the manifestation of a unique, personal, obsessive vision and is the embodiment of intense emotion. Committed to my own vision and freedom, I have a fierce need for personal expression. My creative process is initiated by automatic drawing, however, the intensely personal nature of my work soon transforms these spontaneous images into a personal story or narrative. These narratives make autobiographical references and visualize personal experiences, dreams, and emotional responses. I utilize random juxtapositions to create enigmatic compositions containing violence, sexual allusions, and psychic crises. In my daily life, I expose only that part of myself that I want others to see, repressing my more ambitious, erotic, and aggressive desires. However, the id rebels against the censorship of the superego in my art allowing full expression of my fantasies. There are several predominant aspects of my true character which reveal themselves in my work. First, I visualize myself as a victim-hero in a dangerous and senseless world gone out of control. I have no power over the world and can only live with personal virtue and be self reliant. Consequently, I often deal with the darker side of the psyche, my own as well as that of others. Secondly, I have many erotic thoughts which exist in the realms of both fantasy and reality. My thoughts range from fears of impotence, castration, embarrassment, and rejection to the pride of extreme prowess and virility. A third major aspect of my work concerns pain and death.