Monterey Peninsula Art Foundation
Edward M. Corpus
Rose Room (Mrs. Riggs and Johnny Jitterbug), 30x36, acrylic painting
My name is Edward M Corpus. I’m a visual artist and writer based in Pacific Grove on California’s Central Coast, an immigrant Asian male well into the sixth decade of my Boomer years in America.
California has been my home for forty-eight years. Before then, as a teen I attended the Fiorello LaGuardia High School of Music and the Arts, the New York City public school that was the basis of the 1980 film Fame. I received a graphic arts degree with an emphasis in digital animation from California State University at Monterey Bay. I’m a member of the Monterey Peninsula Art Foundation and Central Coast Writers. Although it’s only in the last several years that I’ve actively exhibited my work in public, I have identified as a visual artist since three years of age.
I make art to express ideas in visual form. Much of what passes for popular culture today is devoid of ideas. Digital technology has increasingly enabled spectacular sensual experiences of sight and sound in popular entertainment. Over successive generations this sensory bombardment contributes to inducing attention deficiency in large sectors of the population. Sensation without ideas over four decades contributes in dumbing down the population to intellectual and emotional shallowness. Large sectors of the population have become numb to the pathos of social injustice.
California has been my home for forty-eight years. Before then, as a teen I attended the Fiorello LaGuardia High School of Music and the Arts, the New York City public school that was the basis of the 1980 film Fame. I received a graphic arts degree with an emphasis in digital animation from California State University at Monterey Bay. I’m a member of the Monterey Peninsula Art Foundation and Central Coast Writers. Although it’s only in the last several years that I’ve actively exhibited my work in public, I have identified as a visual artist since three years of age.
I make art to express ideas in visual form. Much of what passes for popular culture today is devoid of ideas. Digital technology has increasingly enabled spectacular sensual experiences of sight and sound in popular entertainment. Over successive generations this sensory bombardment contributes to inducing attention deficiency in large sectors of the population. Sensation without ideas over four decades contributes in dumbing down the population to intellectual and emotional shallowness. Large sectors of the population have become numb to the pathos of social injustice.
Pacific Grove 1906, 7x5, acrylic painting
Persephone in the Springtime, 48x48, acrylic painting
Working primarily in traditional wet and dry media, I combine visual images with the written word to create visual metaphors meant to challenge viewers’ assumptions of what is real and “normal”. If dysfunction is the norm in society, do you want to be considered normal in it? Many of my works draw on the imagery of myths, dreams and altered states. Early Dada, Surrealism and magical realism in art and literature are major influences in my work. These cultural movements sought to inspire art viewers to explore the hidden truths of the subconscious and unconscious mind, and further to reject capitalist notions of normality. This is especially important in the current historical period, when social injustice is accepted as normal by a large sector of the population. I refer to my art as cultural subversive, aiming to subvert the dreadfully normal and to express ideas congruent with my own evolving ethos of social justice and inclusion.
Culture is a social operating system, which acts as a vehicle for the evolution and transmission of ideas. A broken culture is the operating system of a broken society. Its brokenness is displayed in its predominance of bad ideas, and in the physical consequences of its economics, social policy and entertainment. 
The Tower, 30x48, acrylic painting
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Are You An Angel? (An Encounter with Non-Locality), 38x48, acrylic painting
King Sisyphus in the Underworld, 30x36, acrylic painting
I reject the currently dominant but centuries-old culture of patriarchy. Patriarchy is a hierarchical structure that emphasizes male dominance and the rejection of women’s equality. Patriarchy at its core is the first inequality. Further inequalities based on fear of “otherness” layer onto this core. The fearful see the Other as ethnicities, religions, gender identifications and economic standing other than their own and demonize it. Patriarchy ultimately oppresses all peoples, men and women. My images and the written word combine to expose and subvert the dominant culture of patriarchy and its offshoots.
My hopes are that my visual metaphors contribute towards a lasting social transformation. This transformation is ultimately spiritual, meaning the thoughtful reflection on our identities as human beings, our place and meanings in our environment, society and the larger universe. The word spiritual is not bound by any one creed or religion. Whether horrendous, outrageous, hilarious, bathetic or beautiful, I hope my images capture viewers’ attentions to reflect on trauma and transcendence, failure and redemption, loss and recovery. The poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller stated that you subvert the banality of social culture through its entertainment. While my art subverts your sense of normality, perhaps, I might even entertain you. |