As part of TV Mix’s new series TV Art of the Week, we’re proud to present the artist Sean Norvet‘s drawing “Beavis and Butthead Marathon.” Norvet is a recent graduate of the Art Center College of Design where he studied with, among others, the celebrated Mark Todd who has worked for The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly and other top publications.
Norvet’s work is manic and you could call it gross. But its a mania and a grossness that lovers of Ralph Steadman‘s work, and R. Crumb’s comics, and Mad Magazine, and the music of John Zorn will love too. From the art world it’s easy to see the influence of John Baldessari, Richard Prince, Jim Nutt and even Kanye West favorite George Condo. The paintings are sometimes explosive, sometimes still, but often pull from very different styles of depiction from glossy realism to cartoon buffoonery. His drawings come across more unified and perhaps show off his immense skill even more as they portray distorted anatomy, perfect perspective landscape views, and an assortment of lettering styles in their mashups of clutter and cultural detritus.
For “Beavis and Butthead Marathon”, Norvet shows a a few desperately nerdy, pimpled guys who seem to be snacking on cheese whiz while watching the opening credits of the MTV show. Sadly the table the vintage TV is on seems to be reacting badly to the marathon of animated fart jokes and is beginning to hurl itself upwards, upsetting the trash arrayed across its knotty wood. To make matters worse there appears to be tiny shark fins beginning to swim through the wood as if it was water, and the very substance of their reality might be falling apart as the back wall seems to be pealing away to reveal a very classic, Dust Bowl-looking landscape.
Norvet is a native of Los Angeles, who sites as his favorite TV shows, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, MTV’s Beavis and Butthead, and Married with Children. His work has appeared in numerous exhibitions in California including, The Phone Booth Gallery in Long Beach, the Giant Robot Gallery in Los Angeles (where the 9th annual Post-It Show is up now) and in a group show called Beer is Art at the ground zero of West Coast illustration, La Luz de Jesus.
Norvet says the piece is about “The chaos of watching a marathon of your favorite show before Netflix or DVR.” So it’s a perfect first piece for TV Mix’s TV Art of the Week series (since TV Mix is devoted to the freedom of watching what you want without huge cable bills).
As his instructor, Todd, put it, “Sean Norvet will make you smile. And then he’ll make you cringe. his work is a contradiction of emotions, twisted and regurgitated. Like a funny dream turned bad dream that haunts you after having too much late night greasy pizza and beer.”
To find out more about Norvet’s work, click here.
About TV Mix’s TV Art of the Week series: Each week TV Mix will select a piece of art from a rising artists that addresses television — especially how it is changing rapidly in the new era of mobile and a la cart services. We provide a showcase for these artists and celebrate their success in the art world, and also help them get in touch with their fans via links. If you’d like to submit a piece or nominate an artists please use our CONTACT FORM. Please include a short bio. An editor will be in touch if you’re selected and answer any questions.
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