"Through agony, ecstasy and absurdity, the figures wear the same blank look like a crash test dummy or the neutral face emoji. If The Scream by Edvard Munch conveys existential terror, Fuh's characters issue a deep, profound and spiritual meh."
"I think there's something very 21st-century and post-internet about the completely blank face, the artist says. There's an apathy to them. They're like, Just let the world happen to me; I don't give a f--k."
"For Fuh, who you are as a person is an amalgamation of the stories you've lived as well as the stories others tell about you. In Cowboy Poet, the artist shares some of his own dear tales from the dusty trail including booze-ups, band practices and the time he got bottled."
Simon Fuh's exhibition Cowboy Poet at Toronto's YYZ Artists' Outlet features intricate black ink drawings depicting scenes of youthful adventure and misadventure drawn from memory and fantasy. The illustrations portray social tableaux including bicycle crashes, reckless behavior, and absurd situations. A distinctive characteristic unifies all figures: completely blank faces resembling crash test dummies or neutral emojis, conveying profound apathy rather than emotional response. Fuh began the series after relocating from Toronto to Regina, exploring themes of youth culture, memory, and identity formation. The blank expressions reflect contemporary post-internet sensibility, suggesting detachment and indifference to worldly events. Through these works, Fuh shares personal coming-of-age narratives from his Prairie upbringing, examining how identity forms through lived experiences and stories others tell about us.
#contemporary-art #youth-culture #identity-formation #post-internet-aesthetics #memory-and-autobiography
Read at www.cbc.ca
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