Karl Wirsum's retrospective at the Chicago Cultural Center is a culmination of forty years of creative expression by a man professionally known as an Imagist, a painter who has worked with a wide range of media, and a graphic artist who uses vivid colors, gestures, and symbology to bring his cartoon-like figures to life.

Lanny Silverman, the curator of the retrospective, has said, “Imagist Art is the reverence for sources of inspiration rather than the irony of Pop Art.” The Chicago Imagists, of which Wirsum was a member, consisted of a group of artists with similar styles who exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center in the late 1960s. Their seminal work was the antithesis of the urban Pop Art promulgated by New York artists at the time. Known for their grotesque images, surrealism, blue collar sensitivities, and even coarseness and vulgarity, the Imagists represented a new vanguard of “down-to-earth” artists showing reverence for all things that inspired them.

Although his distinct abstract-figurative style pervades his work, Wirsum has engaged in a wide range of media — drawings, paintings, sculpture, fabric pieces, stained glass, printmaking, toys, kites, puppets, 3-D photo images — revealing his virtuosity, adaptability, and skill in communicating his inner voice. He is always on the look out for different avenues, including animation, to bring his work to life.

Wirsum also considers himself to be an artist who engages in graphic design by using poster-like vivid colors, comic-book gestures and physicality, and symbology, including text, glyphs, and pictographs. Reminiscent of comic book art, art from traditional cultures, and Ray Johnson's correspondence art, Wirsum's designs transport us to a cryptographic world of enchanted symbols.

No Go Michelangelo, acrylic on wood, 46×35 inches, 2006.
Courtesy of the Artist and Jean Albano Gallery, Chicago

ArtStyle: How would you describe your style of art?

Karl Wirsum (KW): My work is based on drawing and free association, using the subconscious to create characters, using gestures, and connecting to thematic and heroic ideals in sports, music, alternate beings, and life in the future. Like a director in a puppet show, I manipulate the actions of my creations.

ArtStyle: What are your inspirations?

KW: Tin toy lithographs from the 1950s, comic books, art from other cultures, masks, movies, science fiction, tribal art, and tattoos.

ArtStyle: Your art seems to deal with transformation. Could you comment on that?

KW: In my work, transformation takes place on many levels. Physical transformation would be something like the wolf man, changing into an animal but still maintaining some human resemblance. The transformation from disease to healing or the altered body type is symbolized by disabled people in a circus performing heroically despite their impediments. An example of death and regeneration would be a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. A by product of that would be seizing form, for example, bits of broccoli eventually becoming inspiration for a head. Restoration of the ideal and beauty is another transformational theme in my work.

Shoestring Query Can’t Beggars Be Shoe-Z, acrylic on canvas, 44×38 inches, 2006.
Courtesy of the Artist and Jean Albano Gallery, Chicago.

ArtStyle: You use titles or tag-ons that are puns, riddles, and wordplay. [The title of his retrospective is Karl Wirsum, Winsome Works(Some)]. Do you have them in mind while you're creating the work or do you create them afterwards?

KW: In most cases, I create them afterwards. They are used initially to make things easier to catalogue. They're like a title of a song or poem.

ArtStyle: Could you talk a little bit about your studio practices?

KW: I always meditate before starting a project, but it's not a formal meditation. It's more like Tai Chi and yoga where you do a physical meditation. There is mental activity going on and I'm not trying to make my mind blank. I'm connecting to visual phenomena. There are random images that come to mind. For example, I might be thinking about religion and the devil comes to mind. I see hell freezing and I'm shoveling snow and then there's a giant snowball. Jerry Lee Lewis appears because of his song “Great Balls of Fire,” and the connection is nefarious because of his past relationships with minors.

I also do my drawings in sketchbooks and get my ideas from them. I have a series of sketchbooks and sometimes draw something in one and then go to another one and draw a similar image but from a different perspective. There is a creative element in the drawing phase before going to the final drawing on canvas, for example. Someone looking at my sketchbooks can probably see a transformation in them from one drawing to another.

ArtStyle: Could you talk about blending abstraction with figuration?

KW: Everything starts out as figurative, but I need to determine the degree of abstraction to include. I think about how much do I change something before it becomes unrecognizable.

ArtStyle: My favorite painting is Double Duck Talk (two ducks walking, one seemingly saying something, and the other, looking away) because I can imagine me telling my husband to help me with my blog and he's kind of ignoring me. I like the colors, the communication, and the movement. I like everything about it.

KW: What I was aiming for was creating an image that had a number of possible readings. It's connecting to the experience of the unseen. It's the idea of ducks out of water, association with Donald Duck, and camping, which I was doing at the time. The “ouch” refers to be bitten by a bug. The red background indicates danger.

ArtStyle: You've been involved with a wide range of media: drawings, paintings, sculpture, fabric pieces, toys, kites, puppets, 3-D photo images. Is there anything else you want to try?

KW: I'm open to new things. I might get into large-scale things again. I might want to try animation.

Reference: John Hallmark Neff, Karl Wirsum Revisited (City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and John Hallmark Neff, 78 East Washington Street, Chicago, IL 60602, 2007)

For more of Karl Wirsum’s art, please visit Jean Albano Gallery in Chicago.

Technorati Tags: Chicago Cultural Center, Pop Art, Chicago Imagists, Pop Art, comic book art, Ray Johnson's correspondence art, Karl Wirsum, Tin toy lithographs, science fiction, tribal art, transformation, meditation, sketchbooks