Depending on your source, Joey DAMMIT! was either born in Madeira, Portugal and immigrated with his family to Toronto, Canada when he was 4 years old....or he was found in the wilds of deepest, darkest Africa, raised by chimps, brought back to civilization, and adopted by Mr. and Mrs. DAMMIT!, a family that made their vast fortune in a line of sex toys. Ask Joey, you'll get a shrug and he'll tell you he has a hard time remembering last weekend.

This is what we do know. After spending a good portion of his youth in the Roman Catholic Church, serving as "the best damn altar boy this side of the Pecos," he eventually spent his early adulthood fronting many a loud hairspray band in Toronto in the 80's. Joey did eventually come to a life altering realization that he could not in fact sing, and put his energies into his other love---the visual arts. Enrolling in a graphic design course at Humber College, he quickly gained a reputation as a cartoonist, both for his own magazine, and in the advertising field.

Upon graduation, finding work in an advertising studio, he immediately realized that the business was not at all what he had envisioned. "I wanted to be Darren Stevens from Bewitched and found that the most creative I could get was working on fruit juice boxes." He quickly left the world of advertising behind---bewildered, depressed, but with a yearning to create art that was original, stimulating, and would allow him to express himself in the way he yearned to.

Locked away in the basement of one of Toronto's finest bordellos, Joey emerged some years later with a whole new enthusiasm for an art style he dubbed the "Manic Montage." A mixed media collage work that was influenced by everything from Nick Bantock's 'Griffen and Sabine' books, to Robert Rauschenberg's collages, mass media, and film. A chaotic mish-mash of any medium he can get his hands on; paint, photocopies, textiles, wood, and often maniacally worked over by good ol' Crayola crayons. The Toronto Star hailed his work as "Warhol on a head on collision with David Lynch." His subject matters run the gamut, though he has certainly gained fame for his usage of celebrity icons, usually done up in a garish and often controversial manner. "The intensity of his artwork reflects the cultural overload of the landscape we live in. Only DAMMIT!'s able to take the cacophony of sound, image and information and translate it all into brilliant, frequently funny, occasionally frightening and always fascinating works of contemporary art." states Cathleen Bond of Ocean Drive.

To DAMMIT!, it isn't solely about painting either---it's about promoting, creating and maintaining a major buzz. Having appeared in numerous print and electronic medias, and winning some prestigious awards, he takes pride in calling himself a "Grade-A, government inspected media whore." Finding nothing very romantic about being a starving artist, DAMMIT! says the secret to creative longevity and success is shameless promotion, and keeping yourself in the public eye---something that he seems to have very little trouble accomplishing.