I first stumbled across Alex Pardee during my years of teenage angst without even knowing who he was. I remember picking up a CD and staring at the artwork on the cover thinking it was most deranged image I had ever seen. As I grew out of that stage and slowly began getting into the local graffiti scene I came across Alex Pardee again. I had been looking up different artist and seeing how their work made an impact on me. I watched these videos of Alex Pardee on YouTube doing graffiti and I thought the images themselves were so morbid and deranged that I needed to find more of his work. As I looked on his website I found myself having slight déjà vu, lo and behold the album artwork from the CD I bought years ago was his. Over the past few years I have been an avid follower of Alex Pardee and would kill to see his work in person. It was hard for me to narrow down one piece of his since I adore all of his work.
The image I selected is Good Night Lava. This piece shows how well Pardee uses his mediums along with his vibrant use of color. I love how you can feel the texture throughout this piece. The agony in the narwhal-esque creatures face really makes you want to pick up the little guy and make its pain stop, but yet it makes you just want to be the outside spectator and let it happen. The yellow figure is so tranquil and makes the viewer want to know what is going to happen. Pardee makes using ink as a medium to be a very easy task. Alex Pardee is one of very few contemporary artists out there that is actually making work that just isn’t splatter paint on a canvas or rolling around in dirt and putting it on a canvas and calling that “art”. Pardee captures emotion and makes the viewers feel like they are part of his work. I adore this man even if his work may seem macabre to most common folk I find every inch of Pardee’s work irresistible, and I hope you viewers do too. Plus any man who can turn Steve Urkel into a demonic looking creature is good in my book.
Alex Pardee himself
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love love love alex pardee his work is so good i could look at it forever
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