Justin Varner: Darkest Ground

charcoal and pastel on paper,

22 1/2" x 21 3/4"

Life in Port Arthur, TX

Stray Dogs, boarded up windows, fast food debris, Old English Malt Liquor bottles, used diapers, restaurants that live a month, dead cars, cigarette butts mixed with tainted leaves, rusted hubcaps, sadistic mosquitoes, stretched condoms, Good Will’s children’s toys, and the endless brown/grey attitude of the oxygen I inhale are the objects and elements I try to ignore everyday in Port Arthur, Texas. This once thriving coastal community declined to what it is now through political corruption, bouts with hurricanes, gang violence, prostitution, and the inability to repair itself, amongst the uncaring leaders of this minority-dominated population.

What I have found to excite me, bring empathy, evaluation, and darkly enough, some humor, is the acceptance of circumstance its occupants possess. My black-and-white charcoal drawings digest my observations and translate an already bleak atmosphere into something more unimaginable. What I have documented intertwines with new discoveries and grotesquely rendered stereotypes to give birth to an even more ignorable society located in a town not too far removed.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Darkest Ground