Using layers of mediums of visual language that are part of our daily postmodern lives, Chad is able to signify multiple meanings and suggestions using a visual code. These references to iconicity and cultural symbols become autobiographical for the Midwesterner growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s, greatly influenced by art, film, and music culture. His research deals with the phenomenology of this cultural significance as well as how much of our current moment is a collage using pieces from the past.
His roots are grounded in the traditions of collage thinkers such as Ray Johnson, Kurt Schwitters, Joseph Cornell, and Marcel Duchamp. He imbues Johnson’s references and correspondences, Schwitters’ distressed aesthetic, Cornell’s nostalgia, and Duchamp’s ingenious ingenuity.
He takes hold of identifiable images that make up his idiosyncratic interests and identity and transform them into a unified aesthetic, using techniques found in cartooning, graffiti tagging, movie posters, concert flyers, evoking Dada, Surrealism, and American Abstract Expressionism.
xScuzzx is a reference to hardcore-punk bands in the 80s and 90s that wanted to signify that they were “straight-edge,” made popular by Minor Threat, which means no drug or alcohol use. It has roots in the idea that Xs would be drawn on a minor’s hands with a Sharpie at a venue to signify that they were not to be served alcohol. By the early 2000s, the Xs were only used to signify that it was a fake band that people made up for one show. Pop punk bands such as MXPX used X as a period (Magnum Plaid, M.P., MxPx). I’ve been thinking daily about the many uses and signifiers of the symbol X. Xs for eyes, Xs for incorrect, X marks the spot. Scuzz is a reference to the scuffed-up and distressed nature of paper that I use in collages. It was formerly spelled Scüzz, but the two dots (umlaut) are now Xs on each side of Scuzz. xScuzzx
His roots are grounded in the traditions of collage thinkers such as Ray Johnson, Kurt Schwitters, Joseph Cornell, and Marcel Duchamp. He imbues Johnson’s references and correspondences, Schwitters’ distressed aesthetic, Cornell’s nostalgia, and Duchamp’s ingenious ingenuity.
He takes hold of identifiable images that make up his idiosyncratic interests and identity and transform them into a unified aesthetic, using techniques found in cartooning, graffiti tagging, movie posters, concert flyers, evoking Dada, Surrealism, and American Abstract Expressionism.
xScuzzx is a reference to hardcore-punk bands in the 80s and 90s that wanted to signify that they were “straight-edge,” made popular by Minor Threat, which means no drug or alcohol use. It has roots in the idea that Xs would be drawn on a minor’s hands with a Sharpie at a venue to signify that they were not to be served alcohol. By the early 2000s, the Xs were only used to signify that it was a fake band that people made up for one show. Pop punk bands such as MXPX used X as a period (Magnum Plaid, M.P., MxPx). I’ve been thinking daily about the many uses and signifiers of the symbol X. Xs for eyes, Xs for incorrect, X marks the spot. Scuzz is a reference to the scuffed-up and distressed nature of paper that I use in collages. It was formerly spelled Scüzz, but the two dots (umlaut) are now Xs on each side of Scuzz. xScuzzx
