Interview with Artist D.C. Maddox

Background and Introduction to Art

Q: Can you share a little bit about your history with art?

A: I had some dinosaur books when I was a child, as well as a book on sharks and another one showing ancient mysteries of the world like the great pyramids. In time, I discovered sci-fi and fantasy books from J.R.R. Tolkien, Frank Herbert, and Arthur C. Clark.

One day my mother took me to a local shop which had a large selection of comics on the shelves, and while browsing through this stuff I came across Creepy Magazine and Eerie Magazine. I think Ken Kelly had done the cover on one of them and I was just instantly enthralled. Over time I built up a treasure trove of these pulp horror mags at home which I read over and over, and eventually I discovered Metal Hurlant and Heavy Metal as well. This stuff was sort of fringe back in those days, and owning them as a kid kind of made me feel like I was part of a secret club or something.

I obsessed over the art on those covers, and sometimes that would lead me to attempt to sketch out my own ideas in a similar style. To me, those magazines were like a little window into this strange alternate dimension. And let’s be honest, what boy doesn’t want to live in a world filled with monsters, aliens, crazy castles, and wild space women dressed in leather suits and armed with laser guns! So you could say that for me the pulp horror comics of the ‘70s were sort of a gateway drug into the world of fantastic art. I still own a handful of those original magazines, and even after all these years they still serve as inspiration.

No doubt, the combination of warped stories from guys like H.P. Lovecraft along with bizarre art from guys like Frazetta did all sorts of interesting things to my eight-year-old brain.

Q: So you learned to associate storytelling with art right from the beginning?

A: I think so.

Drawing has always been an important way for me to indulge my creative impulses, but drawing can take a lot of different forms. For example, after I was introduced to the world of pen and paper role-playing games as a teenager, that inspired me to create a whole series of hand-drawn adventure maps which I shared with friends and fellow gamers. These were detailed maps of all the most dangerous hidden dungeons, secret temples, and the ruins of forgotten cities on the fringes of forbidden wastes.

J.R.R. Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, and Moebius all created their own worlds, either through literature or art. I was heavily influenced by all of them, and in my own way I’m continuing that tradition by creating my own unique world. If you want to call that storytelling, I won’t argue.

Q: Who we’re your artistic influences?

A: Almost everything in modern art is based on old ideas. The work of the old masters like Goya, Bruegel, and Hieronymus Bosch is always fascinating and inspiring and there is so much to learn from them.

On the contemporary side, Frank Frazetta, Ken Kelly, and Boris Vellejo were early influences. A little later I discovered Max Ernst, Zdzisław Beksiński, and H.R. Giger. It’s hard to overstate the impact this later group had on me as their work greatly expanded my conception of what art could be.

Q: How would you classify your own style?

A: There are elements of abstract expressionism and tonalism in my works, but in truth I consider myself to be a surrealist more than anything else.

Q: Can you explain surrealism?

A: Surrealism originated in the early 1920s, first as a literary and cultural movement, and eventually as a visual art which sought to release the subconscious from the limitations of rational thought. The principal aim was to somehow reconcile or combine the differences and contradictions between dreams and reality, essentially creating what might be considered an absolute super-reality, or surreality.

In other words, one could argue the visions and truths expressed in surrealism are more real than actual reality. How’s that for deep!

Q: But how is it possible to paint something from the subconscious?

A: To attempt this, painters adapted a technique from the original surrealist writers called automatism.

The basic idea with automatism is to clear the mind of the clutter of rational thought as much as possible, with the goal being to produce a spontaneous outpouring of highly imaginative creativity without any pre-existing concepts or preliminary sketches.

I expand on this topic in Surrealism and the Automatic Drawing Technique.

Q: So by using this technique, the artist is surprised at what comes out on the canvas?

A: To an extent, yes.

As I explain in the article above, there’s a lot more to it than just blindly making random marks. In painting this way, it’s important to remember one is attempting to combine developed ideas from the waking mind with impulses from the subconscious, ideally creating something unique which wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

*The beginning of a new untitled painting in 2021*

Automatism is one of many techniques which I incorporate into my works. Some paintings start off using some form of automatism, but others are the result of a series of concept sketches, color studies, and other experimental techniques. In short, some paintings are the result of many spontaneous revisions and ideas layered together while others are meticulously planned out. I don’t follow any particular rules.

Q: Where do you get the ideas which get incorporated into your paintings?

A: Everywhere. Nowhere. It’s hard to say, really. Sometimes, I see something interesting and immediately feel compelled to paint it. Other times it’s a more gradual process and it takes time for me to work out the basic idea. Occasionally, I will paint multiple versions of the same concept, allowing each to evolve on its own.

Most of the objects in my paintings are composed of items which are completely made up from my imagination. However, I sometimes incorporate bits and pieces of reference materials from my studio just to see where that takes me.

Q: What kind things do you use as references?

I don’t remember exactly when it all started, but over the years my studio has slowly morphed into a cabinet of curiosities of sorts, or a form of dark academia. I’ve accumulated pieces of art, strange books, occult objects, old tarot cards, chemical warfare masks, and other assorted oddities. There are also rarities such as megalodon teeth, bones of various sorts, and human anatomical displays. I sometimes rescue taxidermy items which I have given a new home in my studio, such as a zebra pedestal and saltwater crocodile skull.

Many of these items have a story of some kind associated with them, and that kind of background makes them more interesting. I’m most comfortable painting in this kind of environment.

Q: So the studio itself is a part of your painting process?

Unquestionably. My studio is important to me, because it plays a key role in helping me disconnect from the real world and immerse myself in this other place of my own creation. At times, the distinction between studio and art becomes blurred and I work on both almost simultaneously.

Q: Some might argue it’s hard to look at these paintings without seeing a kind of dark symbology relating to real world events or concepts. Are there messages buried within the detail? Are they intended to be metaphorical?

A: Questions regarding the relationship between surrealism and metaphor are as old as surrealism itself.

There are certainly recurring motifs which appear in various forms in my own paintings, and perhaps some of these have become a sort of shorthand for certain ideas which seem to get stuck in my head. So yes, these types of artistic visions can be seen as a type of metaphorical representation.

*Adding finishing touches to ‘The Kiss’ in early 2021*

As to whether my paintings are “dark,” that’s entirely subjective. If people see them as being dark, creepy, or obscene, then I won’t reject those interpretations, because what one person gets out of a painting is just as genuine as what someone else gets. I will add that there’s nothing wrong with exploring the darker aspects of our nature, as way down under the roots of our subconscious is where is where a lot of our most interesting mythologies and ideas live. I feel it’s just as important to explore these things as it is to explore the visual aesthetic of, say, an idyllic landscape or a beautiful portrait.

With that said, I think interpretation is best left up to the viewer without any additional exposition on my part.

Q: So, you don’t feel any desire to tell the story behind individual paintings or explain what it all means?

A: For select paintings I may have a few interesting notes to share regarding my creative thought process. But it is never my intent to offer any sort of meaning or define what a painting represents. An artist needs to respect the audience enough to leave that up to the viewer.

Of course, every artist has a unique perspective and a different set of goals and life experiences which inform their art. I’m not a realist painter. For me, the process of painting is more about sharing feelings or ideas rather than accurately recording observations. It’s been said that surrealistic paintings are a type of psychogram of the artist. And perhaps that’s true, I don’t know. What I do know is there is a certain kind of truth revealed in these images which doesn’t usually tend to come out in other art.

I’m perfectly content to paint and leave interpretation up to the viewer. If someone tells me they see things in one of my paintings which I never intended, then that’s probably an indication I’m doing something right!