Carlos Dye Ceramics

The foundation of my work is constructing  personal narratives through popular imagery based on my dreams and life.  I transcribe conflicting emotions such as angst, happiness, temptation, and sorrow through iconography and symbolism.   The juxtapositions I create with contrasting icons and images create confusion for the viewer. 
Growing up in the Los Angeles, California area, I was surrounded  by  popular culture; Hollywood icons of past and present, hundreds of game shows, ever-changing fashion trends, and an assortment  of music genres shape the concepts and emotions that I transcribe in my art work.  Old cartoons and Hollywood westerns are some of my fondest memories of my youth.   I grew up watching the news, which brought together celebrity  life styles with disasters and crime, and sunny weather reports with recurring violence.  At the time, I found this normal,  yet looking at it now as an adult it seems surreal.

I have become desensitized to this glorified mixture of love and violence, and transpose this feeling in my work. Taking the images of love and the macabre, then  juxtaposing them on a ceramic canvas, I create stories.