Archie Leigh-Jones

The world of the inked line is malleable and magic. Incongruities such as suspended coyotes, the reattachment of dismembered duck beaks and weightless anvils are expected. Holes can be shifted, plucked off a surface and moved elsewhere. I seek to play with these tropes, early cartoon manipulations, Americana and nostalgia. A bright and optimistic world, where a hammer to the head only results in a cranial extrusion, a representation of violence, subdued with humour, made palatable. 

My work aims to use familiar in-jokes, to carry ideas from modernity; fake news, memes, digital space, the lack of good and evil. We live in a time of uncertainty, where no one really knows what is happening. We are lied to by politicians and by social media. The idea of 'truth' is becoming more abstract and subjective. Like the cartoon world, science fiction and film, the real world has become a jumble of 'facts' and opinions, struggling to meld together holistically. Imagery that we initially comprehend as innocent can quickly be flipped to the sinister.