When I posted the video for Chairlift's "Evident Utensil", I coined a little aesthetic concept I called "microquirk", that I think will define the next decade's "look" in the collective memory come the 2020's retrospective. Understanding it is difficult, but there are a few artists who embody this aesthetic perfectly in the areas of technology, "music", "fashion", and "painting". There's also a literary element to it that I try to capture in my writing. Let's see if you guys "get it".
James Jean is an artist I think captures this aesthetic in all of his work.
Combining vivid color, palpable texture, and a taste for the immaculately obscene, Jean somehow transcends metaphor and symbolism, creating something altogether familiar and new.
Also, his imagery is a juxtaposition of the "epic" and "romantic" against a sort of detached, childish sentimentalism, and all of the art has an awareness of its presence in the digital age.
I think the compression, over time, of the many pop-culture rip-off collages dubbed "originality" in the late double-aughts has produced this multi-layered, not quite crystalline, not quite liquid, completely pixel-based aesthetic force. It's the new "new" and I'll happily be your quiet resource for it as long as it's around :)
B. McGILLICUDDY
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