Josiah Bolth
My life's been a tragedy, and a party, and a joke.
My work gestates in the space between the dreamworld and our experience of history, memory, and propaganda narratives. Here new symbols arise, binding the primordial to the contemporary, the erotic to the mundane, the physical to the intangible, subject to forces beyond comprehension or control. I allude to the exotic forms that lay dormant at the edges of the psyche, born from ennui, whimsy, anxiety, delusion, spiritual yearning and sexual fantasy. I seek the creation of a figurative space replete with the artifacts of culture and history, of disorganized and unfocused consciousness, murmuring with the promise of stranger forms waiting to be conceived.
Could you tell us more about your background and how you began creating art?
I spent my youth in the Coachella Valley in the California desert. My interest in art developed first from an interest in critters, the bugs, the birds, the lizards, the sasquatches. From there I attended the Maryland Institute College of in Baltimore, and from there I’ve spent 9 years in New Orleans in a rigorous unlearning process.
What does your art aim to say to its viewers?
I’m think of my paintings as broadcasts looking for a receiver. I’m confident that some out there understand the language I’m speaking, or are at least interested in the lingo. We might use this subliminal language to speak new dreams into existence, or remake our histories into nonsensical jokes. The goofiness of my paintings is a kind of camouflage used to spare normies and the uninitiated any undue strain.
Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What is your daily routine when working?
I wake up when the sun rises. I read, I brood, I meditate on the spirits of martyrs and knowers of truth, work myself into a kind of manageable frenzy, then paint until the sun sets. I never, ever paint after dark.
What is the essential element in your art?
A cautious interest in conversing with djinn.
In your opinion, what role does the artist have in society?
I think it’s likely that we, as a community and as individuals are unwitting propagandists for supernatural forces who seek to influence us for their often (but not always) unknowable purposes. Society is lucky to have us so that they can enjoy the fruits of these interactions.
