Manic Montage

How long have you been in the artwork game?
 From the age of 4, when I drew Samson knocking down the pillars, during Sunday school. I was inspired by the movie version. I went to Humber College for graphic design and advertising, although that has little to do with my work now. I found it very boring. I got a studio job and quit within three months. Nick Bantock was a big inspiration - he did the Griffin & Sabine Trilogy, where his own illustrations were combined with pictures of magazines and photocopies. I've been doing my own version, and call it the Manic Montage. The name suited me because I suffer from bipolar disorder. The first exhibit I did was at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition in 1994, where I won the Best Mixed Media award on my first shot. So, I figured I fooled them, and could do this professionally. Getting bigger and better ever since.

How many units have you sold and what was the highest selling price?
I've sold about 80 pieces since 1994. Prices start at $800 but the highest ever was $2500 for the piece Big in Japan.

What's your favourite of the pieces featured on these pages?
I've always enjoyed artists like Jasper Johns, who use the same icon over and over again, where it becomes part of their identity. Woman of Ill Repute is a favourite, inspired by early 20th century pornography, with a woman posed as Cleopatra. I've used her in several paintings but never a full work and figured this was the right time. It must have worked well because it sold within five minutes of opening the gallery doors for the showing. I call the woman "Cleo".

Where are you trying to take this whole thing?
I would like to mount a show in Paris, France within the next couple years. I was there in 2001 and two galleries showed some interest. I was kind of insecure, thinking I didn't deserve the break, but now I do. New York City has gone back to showing abstract and landscapes - by comparison, Los Angeles is a better scene for me now. That area, including San Francisco, would be a good place to show. But the dream I have points to Paris. I'd also like to have a shop; Planet DAMMIT! Inspired by Keith Haring's pop art store in NYC in the 1980s. But my version would be in Toronto: everything from t-shirts to greeting cards to coffee mugs with my artwork in it, along with a gallery. Some people would say that's selling out, but I say that whatever comes my way tends to work well for me.

MIX Gallery

Name: Joey DAMMIT!

Age: A lady never tells

Homebase: Toronto

Education: Graphic Design and Advertising Diploma, Humber College, Toronto

Artist Statement: "Technicolour chaos" is my favourite way to describe my art. I love a chaotic, in-your-face mishmash, an explosion of images and colour. I believe Zeitgeist surrounds us. The dial of the world and our lives is set to "Overkill." This chaos is conveyed through my love of Pop culture: larger- than-life icons, celebrities, historical figures, comic-book heroes-it's all there. My work has been described as "Warhol in a head-on collision with David Lynch." Perfect. If you're looking for something deeper, there's always the ocean.

Mantra: Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds-Albert Einstein

What was your worst artistic experience? That would have to be all the trouble a 6' x 6' painting of mine caused me. I had to take it to a gallery, but it was too large to fit in a regular van, and I couldn't afford a cube van at the time. So, a friend of mine and I decided to tie it to the roof of his station wagon. We got into the car and proceeded to drive away. Can you say "disaster"? It was like having a giant kite on the roof of the car-as we drove, it wanted to fly away! On one of the coldest days of the year, we had to hold it down with our hands outside the car's windows. My friend was driving with one hand while holding one corner, while I held the other corner from the passenger's side, as we drove clear across the city with our hands almost frostbitten. Horrible! Since then, I've turned to using smaller canvases.

What's Next? I've had two major shows in the last eight months, and the creative well is dry. I'm going to take some badly needed time off to replenish and, at the same time, start doing some research on galleries outside the country. First we take Manhattan...

Pop Power

When artist Joey DAMMIT! was a little boy he wanted to be Darren Stephens. How else could he be married to Bewitched's sexy Samantha? This obsession with pop culture has manifested itself over the years, culminating in an artist whose work screams contemporary scene. A walk through DAMMIT's studio and you're greeted with a floor-to-ceiling wall of videos, a mountain of music, heaps of books and, of course, assaulted by a myriad of multi-coloured, multi-media works of art currently under way.

DAMMIT!'s got more energy than a nuclear reactor, and 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.

The Toronto artist has made his name in collage. A particularly arresting piece entitled "All Good Catholic Boys Wake Up Screaming" focuses on the central figure of the Virgin Mary. Surrounding Mary are shellacked shreds of newspaper articles, a manipulated photo of Samuel Beckett, bits of actual crosses and plastic babies, and even some scrawled poetry of W.B. Yeats.

This isn't art for the weak. It's loaded with literary, religious and contemporary iconography. It insists that you shift between centuries. This is work that demands your full attention and interactivity. DAMMIT! sees the role of the artist in much the same way he pursues his work. To DAMMIT!, art isn't solely about painting. It's about consistently creating and maintaining a major buzz. On the morning of a show, he's up at 5 a.m., papering the city with posters. He vigilantly sends out packages to press promoting his past work and upcoming exhibits. This guy is an indefatigable, one-man hype machine. The dynamic Joey Dammit is most definitely a Canadian artist to watch.   (Cathleen Bond)

Review

"Glamour Is A Rocky Road" at John Steinberg & Associates Studio, Feb. 6 thru April 1, 2002

Joey DAMMIT! openings used to be about spectacle. You'd have to dodge fire-eaters and burlesque dancers to get to the chips and dips, while his collages threw a mass of images and icons defiantly in your face. Now there's rare roast beef and a camera crew prowling around. Has time finally caught up to Joey D!?

Maturity suits him. There's still his painting of a pope screaming in the back room, but the main space is dominated by lovely divas, the central motif of his show. "Twiggy," "Rita Hayworth Gave Good Face," and "Jackie Oh!" stare out from large canvases, faces calm and beautiful. But look closer and you'll see the blood spattering Jackie's face. It is something to behold: polished and restrained and all whispering darkness.

JOEY DAMMIT!

"Collagist Mixes A Mean Pallette."

First the name---he was known as Joseph Alberto Defreitas until the day he autographed a college assignment "designed by Joey, dammit!" and the public persona of Joey DAMMIT! was born.

DAMMIT! is as well known for his opening-night parties as for his edgy, darkly funny collages and paintings-and it's a formula that works. DAMMIT! has been voted Now magazine's most popular artist two years running. His most recent show at the Anoush Gallery with photographer Laurence Laberge (a.k.a. Jellybean) pushed things even further. The night included a dominatrix at the door and a burlesque show at midnight. Titled Circus Sexus Maximus, the show was about "the media perception of sex, which has nothing to do with real life," DAMMIT! says. "It's sex as vaudeville.

DAMMIT! studied graphic design at Humber College, but he lasted only three months in a design job before quitting out of boredom and frustration. For Christmas 1993, he was given the Griffin & Sabine trilogy by Nick Bantock. "It was a revelation," he says. Collage has marked his work ever since.

His art reflects his conversation, which always covers the same themes: media, sex and religion. His family came to Canada from Maidera, Portugal, when DAMMIT! was four, and his parents still have a difficult time accepting his art. Appropriately enough, the media may bring them around: "They see me on TV and start to think I'm not wasting my life."

DAMMIT! is now working on a line of rather disturbing greeting cards and a Bantock-like book about one man's obsession with Winona Ryder. "I once read that the meaning of life is to do something you love so much that you'd do it for free, but get paid handsomely for it. I'm not there yet, but I do love it. Watching a blank canvas fill up is the most thrilling thing in the world." (Erin Curtin)