Ferris Plock painting artist

Ferris Plock is a San Francisco based artist and some of his work is lovely. I'm fairly certain that some people would claim that his entire oeuvre is marvellous and they'd be correct... except for his paintings of big eyed female figures. C'mon man, this is done already! You are wasting your talent.

Where you really get to see Plock's mastery at work is in his appropriations of various culture forms to create a unsettling and insightful new composite whole. Take as an example, the painting below, where a garishly clad demonic samurai totes an equally garish AK47, converse trainers and a Daffy Duck furry suit, haunted by Elmer Fudd's spooky disembodied and betoothed head. What we see here is firstly, something I really like. This is a tremendous painting and is especially bright considering it is painted on ply. Secondly, we have a painting that draws heavily on the last 20 years of LowBrow and Pop Surrealism, while anchoring itself equally comfortably in the medieval past.

The image's unsettling nature is that we are programmed to respond to cartoon characters in a certain way. Part of it is in our upbringing and part of it is to do with our mammalian instincts; the reason that all 'cute good guy' cartoon characters have such large eyes/space around the eyes (see Mickey Mouse) is that we are hardwired to resond to them as if they were babies. To paraphrase, we can forgive Daffy being a bit of a dick because he is cute. Demonic samurai, not so much. We recognise their beady malevolence and aggressive posturing, the red of the skin so much like blood. But then, doesn't he have elaborate threads. I mean, that is a lot of silk and he has kept them sparklingly clean. And then he has eschewed his sword or mace for an AK47, the workhorse of third world hell holes everywhere.

The point I am laboring to make is that this is not an easy painting to pigeonhole and in fact the demon Daffy has shot the pigeon anyway, like the hunter he is (Fudd tells us that). This lack of ease and the beautifully balanced and well rendered use of tone and medium means that Plock's painting and the rest of his similar paintings speak to a viewer who likes challenges, reads about history, likes snazzy (if challenging) fashion choices and is probably into D&D. Nothing is new under the sun, but Plock has created a dischordant synthesis of old and new and challenges the viewer with humour and age old grey areas of humanity.