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Artist
Biography
Gabriel Shaffer is a young, up and coming,
southern self-taught / visionary artist,
who lives and works in Asheville, NC.
His
complex work is often classified in the
outsiderart genre, but contains many elements
of graffiti writing, collage and comic book/cartoon
illustration.
Gabriel's
unique art is driven by a manic obsession
with the relationships between sound, symbol
and image, as they are literally layer upon
layer of graffiti, free association, collage
and various medias, salvaged from assorted
locations (abandoned hospitals, factories
houses, dumpsters, etc.) which create a
circuit board of color, texture and information,
used to form haunting characters and communicate
strange narratives from his own personal
mythology.
Gabriel's
characters consist of old legends, angels,
protectors, tribal totems, dolls, puppets,
flying houses, iconography, shapeshifters,
ghosts, aliens, animals and any other bizarre
form of creature or landscape his mind can
conjure.
Gabriel
is a solitary artist, who lives between
planes, using the power of storytelling,
to explore his inner worlds and simultaneously
exorcise himself from the "madness
of humanity". He has no other option
than to "create to cope", as it
is his belief makind is living in an "apocalyptic
age".
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