AS OF NOW

I never liked calling myself an artist. So much so that I work under a pseudonym due to the risk of looking like a fool and not being able to articulate my feelings around “art”. I do not like promoting myself or talking about myself either which I realize is unfortunate because I have a lot to say. It is easier to get in and get out and not explain yourself. That being said I would like to keep this writing devoted to my work and my feelings towards art lately. I don’t feel like I can achieve that without telling you about Steve Wilkos. In doing so I will also have to share some about me. I was raised in Sonoma County and was influenced early on by skateboarding, music, comics, and graffiti. I started illustrating in the first grade drawing pictures of Batman and Wolverine. Then it was Chad Muska and Andrew Reynolds. Johnny Thunders, Hanoi Rocks, and The Ramones. I have no professional or scholarly training as an artist. I went to SRHS ArtQuest program for one year before I was “kicked out”. Fellow art kids from 05’-10’ know what the culture was like there at that time. I can’t speak to it now. After school I continued drawing and started painting more. I created an instagram under the name @SteveWilkos1 and that’s where I started posting drawings that I was uncomfortable posting on my personal social media “platform”. I always loved the Slim Shady/Marshall Mathers, Batman/Bruce Wayne idea. It captivated me when I was younger but I never fully understood it. I didn’t understand that it would hinder my own expression. I also know now that no one is anonymous on social media. For a long time I treated Steve Wilkos as a different person. All of my “SUNDAY” comics for ‘ROSESNORANGES’ were easy because I had a mask for it. Whether the comic was racial, political or controversial ‘RNO’ never censored me once. I was working under the name of a person who wasn’t real. Yet. As I grew with art and myself things changed. Peanuts and Simpsons satire got boring. It felt like it was a cop out. I can get clicks and views and positive response from stuff like that all day. I started realizing I was walking a fine line between nostalgia farming and what I actually wanted to create. Now I do think there is a time and place for nostalgia. I also think its a crutch. A crutch I admittedly leaned on for too long. When I moved to San Miguel, CA I started trying to search for what I wanted to actually achieve with art and if I even wanted to share it anymore. I will note I have a big ego and its something I constantly struggle with keeping in check. The more down I feel about myself the bigger my ego gets. But I do what I can. Living down south and secluded from my peers has had a strange effect on what I create now. I don’t make art with friends. I don’t go to art shows. I don’t talk about my art. If you look at my instagram you can see I don’t promote or rarely provide any context to the pieces in which I post. Recently I have been interested in opening up more of myself into my art and less Steve Wilkos. It’s hard enough for me to battle one identity let alone two. About a year ago I started on a nightmare journey. 4-5 times a week I would have the most obscure night terrors. People from past lives in places they shouldn’t be and whole worlds created in my sleep. I couldn’t shut it off. If you know me you know I hate people explaining their dreams. I really couldn’t give a fuck. Admittedly my response is poor. We all have bad dreams so what. So… the idea was that these dreams are Steve’s. I will paint them if he has them. I will interpret what they mean to the best of my ability. Then I don’t have to go around boring people with some long explanation of a violent hurtful thing that my subconscious created when I was fast drunk asleep. So I started doing that. Back to when I said, Peanuts and Simpsons get clicks and sell tshirts. Steve’s dreams don’t. I quickly realized every painting that I made about this dream period was met with as much care and understanding as I treat others when they are explaining their dreams to me. None of these paintings have been well received so far. Going into this I figured that would be the case and I leaned into it. I wanted to capture to the best of my ability what Steve was trying to say. I couldn’t be happier with the outcome. I strived to find a way to combine those sleeping ideas with waking effort. On many of these paintings I think I missed the mark on something that makes others feel seen and I knew that was the price to pay getting into this. I have to say the handful of people who have reached out and encouraged me around this work means more than I can express. Steve is still here and I think we have an understanding now. If nothing else I know that I can paint and draw what is actually inside of me with no outside influence. While pop caricatures may serve as icons, the world in which they live in, is truly mine.

-STEVE WILKOS