Artist Statement

Honesty, bravery, emotion, freedom and Jesus Christ...

I try my best to convey these themes through my artwork. I started out as a young artist looking for things to paint and I really felt that my faith as first a Roman Catholic and later a Lutheran was a substantial basis in forming my themes. If you look at my artwork you see my faith blatantly represented, this has a purpose. I believe in what I represent, namely Jesus Christ. His story as well as scripture is the most important thing in my life. Early artists were not afraid to proclaim their faith and yet now it seems that the less you believe in anything resembling Christianity the more of an artist you are. A sad state of affairs considering that art was always connected to religion in some form or another. Ok, I find that my art is honest, I try to represent what I feel, my technique is less deliberate now and has a more emotional and free quality. My medium which consists of glues of different natures with either acrylic paint or inks requires me to let go of perfection. It has a knack of creating itself in certain ways and I find it is very appropriate to the more spiritual themes. I enjoy the drips, the turns and even the mistakes. At first my art resembled the stained glass of old churches as I keep my colors vibrant and my backgrounds black. What they resemble now is up to the viewers’ interpretation. I have also ventured into darker themes that pervert and permeate our culture, some are ironic, some not. The main thing about my art is that it is a fair look into what I see if only at times. It’s not easy being an artist; it’s not easy expressing yourself. It can be liberating... sometimes, and it is because of that small glimpse of freedom that I continue.

Rocco Anthony Pesce