“I think the general unease that has gripped the planet over the past few years has definitely seeped into my work,” says artist Todd Schorr.
A look at one of Shore’s latest works, Travels of the Gullible, reveals this in more detail. This painting is a classic of Shore’s work. We find an ape—one of his most faithful subjects, one that faithfully returns to his attention with almost religious fervor—lifting the flat Earth. A thug plopped down on the discus, crying with his mouth wide open, spurting out large droplets of spittle that flew away in the shape of the Twitter logo. The ape stands on top of the Loch Ness Monster in front of an audience that includes dancing fairies, trapped Martians, and a plump mermaid (both the ape and the Loch Ness Monster appear stunned by the mermaid’s nudity). In the background are ghosts in a cemetery, and a rainbow grows from a pot of gold, ending in a unicorn. The backdrop is a tarp with hand-drawn planets and stars, covering the real and elusive universe.
Comparing this and other recent works with his earlier works reveals a new vantage point. His paintings are never reserved or coy, but they almost never express this danger. Signature elements of his practice remain the cornerstone of his new work – an obsession with mid-century American style, infused with the grotesque and monstrous, blending high realism with elevated style. Motifs include apes, eggs, posters, art historical references and autobiographies. But the unabashed joy of his early work has been replaced by foreboding.
Trying to understand my place in this universe keeps me exploring new subjects and expanding my knowledge. I don’t look for answers in religion or religion half-baked Conspiracy theory…”
Let’s go back to “The Gullible Travels” again. Where else could one go but follow everyone’s gaze towards the drooling idiot? The earth is dry. There are mountains in the distance, but how vast are they? Not even the Martians can return home. It’s better to just sit back and watch the monsters convince you that the earth is flat. Maybe you could at least take some water from the lake for agreeing with them. The land looked dry and there seemed to be no good watering facilities nearby.
Shore commented: “Keeping abreast of world events and culture is a priority. There is a general increase in ignorance and stupidity that seems to have seeped into some people’s minds of late. Where is the common sense?”
Thug’s saliva reappears in Shore’s other recent work, The Sputum. Here we see another Martian in the company of a knight – either confronted by, or accosted by – a giant clown. The Joker’s mouth is filled with rotten teeth, and copious amounts of spit pour from it, landing on the Martians and Knights below. The landscape here looks similar to the one surrounding the apes and the Loch Ness Monster in The Gullible . Here, however, the clowns are accompanied by a large tented circus that spirals toward the sky.
Shore’s work has always been soupy. A little of this, a big chunk of that, and somehow it all comes together. “Somehow,” of course, because he’s been working on his unique style since the late 1980s, when he quit his cool job as a professional illustrator to pursue the art of his heart.
But behind the style, which captivates us with its intricate compositions and playful homages to pop culture of yesteryear, is a keen conscience about the state of the world.
We also get a look at “The Enchanted Land.” This 2022 work depicts onlookers watching a nuclear test on the Cape. There’s an OPPIE’S burger joint and an oversized Bob’s Big Boy-style mascot whose face is modeled after J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led New Mexico’s Los Alamos Laboratories program to build the atomic bomb for the U.S. government during World War II (the state’s motto is, of course, “The Enchanted Land”). Big Oppie carries a tray with the classic
American burger and a bottle without a stopper. A cruel genie emerges from a bottle, warming his hands with a mushroom cloud of nuclear weapons exploding in the valley below.
“As a child growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the threat of nuclear annihilation was a very real possibility,” Shore said. “We did ‘duck and cover’ drills at school and one of my friend’s parents built a bomb shelter under their garage and we used to play there. So, that period of time as kids had a lasting impact. The threat is still present in our day, but hopefully it’s tempered by its futility to ensure any positive outcome for whoever decides to go down this path. ‘The Enchanted Place’ is more of a ‘nostalgic’ take on the early days of nuclear testing, when there was a real audience in attendance to watch!”
Shore has considered nuclear annihilation in his art many times before. In Atomic Vacation (2010), the four horsemen of the Apocalypse explode on their way to leveling a family camped in an Airstream trailer. In his works, mushrooms are fragrant and can also be seen as signs of birth and decay. His 2013 painting “Einstein’s Mushrooms” unabashedly suggests that nuclear energy is the source of good and evil. There, we find Albert Einstein hunting for toadstools—with his leather shorts and big head, he looks like he was drawn by a half-way cartoonist.
But what kind of mushroom would Einstein choose? Mushrooms, turning our world’s waste into nutrients. The mushrooms are shaped like the death clouds that follow the howl of nuclear annihilation. Einstein was an outstanding figure in the search for knowledge of his time. Does he fully understand the horrors his research might one day bring?
“Trying to figure out my place in this universe keeps me constantly seeking to learn new subjects and expand my knowledge. I won’t find the answers in religion or half-baked conspiracy theories. For me, it’s a never-ending exploration of the wonders of the natural and man-made worlds that keeps my imagination fertile. All of this will somehow feed into the new paintings to come,” said Shore.
Expect more products from Schorr soon. He is working on new paintings that will eventually appear in gallery exhibitions and perhaps in a book. On those walls and in those pages, we will undoubtedly find images filled with fear and hope, inviting us once again to take a dream journey into the mind of Todd Shore. It was certainly a trip that left everyone special and everyone wanting more. *
This article originally appeared in Hi-Fructose Issue 77, the print version is available here.
