William Basso

William Basso is a contamporary artist. Combining equal amounts of horror movie magazines and comic books with Renaissance or Eastern European art, for example, helped to shape Bill's artistic sensibilities. He talks about his work in his bio:

My work is a combination of various artistic disciplines including drawing, sculpture, photography, collage and painting. Used together, these allow me to create images of mystery, wonder, delight, sorrow and fear, which often take place in intimate stage-like settings.

The characters in my work exist in a distant, half-remembered, autumnal place where even Halloween can last forever. Images emerge through a cross-referencing of many artistic influences, memories and ideas. Ancient and flickering, monochrome films of the fantastic and macabre play continuously, running through rusted projectors. Long, silent corridors are hung with varnished, cracked paintings and brittle prints from another age, while rows of tall, wooden cabinets display bones and other arcane specimens behind panes of misted glass.

Although my work is photographically based, I would classify it as a form of mixed-media. I typically begin a piece by drawing and working out ideas on paper. This is followed by sculpting and constructing a series of miniature, doll-like characters or maquettes, as well as a variety of intricate handmade objects that are then photographed. These objects and constructions are made from all kinds of things like clay, cardboard, string, paper, wire, tape, wood, hair and odd bits of cloth. The photographs are processed in the computer.

As I'm working, it can feel as though I'm staging a tiny theater piece or perhaps curating a mysterious museum exhibit combined with a long ago forgotten sideshow of curiosities.

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