Holding on to his hallucinations—from childhood through now—Jim Woodring creates not just art, but trips into worlds you probably never knew you needed or even wanted to take… until you do.
Paranoia, hallucinations and psychotic episodes would send most of us running screaming into some abyss from which we may never return. Or maybe we’d just be sitting in a chair, in the dark, staring out, wordless, frozen, morose. Jim Woodring learned long ago to hold on to his childhood trips through the unknown so he could turn them into the stuff of wild imaginings on canvas. We’re thinking he’s discovered the antidote to every psychotherapy session known to man.
But Jim doesn’t just paint paintings. No. He draws cartoons, sketches eccentric and exceptional charcoals, and basically turns those demons into diamonds. Catchy, yes? And, oh, so true. There are cartoons, graphic novels, comics and… ah, man… the list just freaking goes on. This Los Angeles native has been turning the art world on its head and inspiring pieces such as seriously cool vinyls since he first began wanting, no NEEDING to share what he couldn’t get away from in his mind on the page. But, wait, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. If you want to know Jim, you’ve got to meet Frank. Frank is not to be denied.
Frank is a bucktoothed biped who looks like a cat or, ya know, a wonky dog… although, he could be a mouse, but definitely not a rabbit… unless, well… Whatever the case, he is what Jim calls a “generic anthropomorph” animal whose exploits he has chronicled in vivid, uncanny detail through books, graphic novels, canvases and those quirky ass vinyls that the kids (and serious collectors who understand the unbelievable cool of this shit) go crazy for. Crazy. Good, no, great word. Because Jim Woodring is as fucking awesome as he is because he’s embraced, shit, he celebrates those things that so often freak the rest of us out about ourselves.
Jim has tuned in to what makes him tick and loaded up the world with fantastic wonder because of it. He’s far more than Frank and beyond even the psychedelic yet completely realistic images he creates. He is, in the words of Buddha, awake — even when he lends his art to the cause of delicious, immersive sleep as with Jeff Bridges’ LIFE IS BUT A DREAM sleep-in project. And we are all lucky recipients of his excessive yet poetic walks through his mind that bring us such glorious images in which to lose ourselves.
