Bob Conge of Plaseebo for "ByeBye2018 Hello2019"
WHAT-IS: "ByeBye2018 Hello2019" is a serial feature where select artists share with us their past year in 2018, and what to expect from them in 2019!"
(For Instagram @plaseebo_bobconge )
TOYSREVIL: How was 2018 for you? Share with us your most triumphant moment(s) in 2018. What did you find the most disappointed of 2018?
BOB CONGE: Today is January 5, 2018 at 11:59 PM and in one minute I will turn 80. All things considered, for me, that is certainly the most triumphant moment of this past year. I am not exactly sure just what being 80 means yet, but when I was younger I firmly believed I would be dead by 30 and lived like it. So as I sit here typing this I have had an extra 50 years to date, the last 40 of which I have been sober. From this perspective how could I have any disappointments ? Whatever happens, if it doesn’t interfere with my breathing I am pretty much good with it !
TOYSREVIL: Happy Birthday, Bob! What is your most favorite toy, or piece of art you've seen in 2018?
BOB CONGE: Here are some of my favorite pieces from 2018 that I was able to snag (See montage featured above) ... And one that got away ...
TOYSREVIL: What are you most looking forward to in 2019? Any plans for your work, for the new year you can share with us?
BOB CONGE: As for 2019, I will continue work on my series of 24” x 36” portraits inspired by what I consider to be some of the human conditions that are shredding the fabric of American democracy. Greed, loss of self worth, compromise of ethics, elitism, to name a few. I have started painting into the drawings in 2018 and hope to have the series of 40 or more completed in this year.
Here are 3 examples of the finished pieces in the series:
"Lobbyist For Big Tobacco"
24”x36” Monoprint with watercolor embellishment.
"The Corporate Vision"
24”x36” Monoprint with watercolor embellishment.
"The Corporate Toll"
24”x36” Monoprint with watercolor embellishment.
BOB CONGE: I am equally excited by the plans for PLASEEBO. PLANET-X plans to have the official release of the Plaseebo Stone Walker vinyl figure in the Spring.
(Above-right: With motion activated color-changing LED unit on in darkened room)
BOB CONGE: As for new sculpts, I just finished “Frankenduck”. I hope to produce Frankenduck in vinyl later this year. Here is the backstory:"It all began innocently enough.
(“FRANKENDUCK” Copyright 2019 Bob Conge)
TOYSREVIL: Share with us, WHO you are and what you do?
BOB CONGE: I am a tinker, a follower of muses, day dreamer, night owl, purveyor of magic, high wire act, and maybe not. I am and always have been in love with making things that occur to me. It is what I do and who I am. It is my only voice in this wilderness of noise. It is a path without end that I follow each day.
You can find some of what I have made here:
www.plaseebo.net
www.bobconge.com
illustrators.net/conge
(For Instagram @plaseebo_bobconge )
TOYSREVIL: How was 2018 for you? Share with us your most triumphant moment(s) in 2018. What did you find the most disappointed of 2018?
BOB CONGE: Today is January 5, 2018 at 11:59 PM and in one minute I will turn 80. All things considered, for me, that is certainly the most triumphant moment of this past year. I am not exactly sure just what being 80 means yet, but when I was younger I firmly believed I would be dead by 30 and lived like it. So as I sit here typing this I have had an extra 50 years to date, the last 40 of which I have been sober. From this perspective how could I have any disappointments ? Whatever happens, if it doesn’t interfere with my breathing I am pretty much good with it !
TOYSREVIL: Happy Birthday, Bob! What is your most favorite toy, or piece of art you've seen in 2018?
BOB CONGE: Here are some of my favorite pieces from 2018 that I was able to snag (See montage featured above) ... And one that got away ...
TOYSREVIL: What are you most looking forward to in 2019? Any plans for your work, for the new year you can share with us?
BOB CONGE: As for 2019, I will continue work on my series of 24” x 36” portraits inspired by what I consider to be some of the human conditions that are shredding the fabric of American democracy. Greed, loss of self worth, compromise of ethics, elitism, to name a few. I have started painting into the drawings in 2018 and hope to have the series of 40 or more completed in this year.
Here are 3 examples of the finished pieces in the series:
"Lobbyist For Big Tobacco"
24”x36” Monoprint with watercolor embellishment.
"The Corporate Vision"
24”x36” Monoprint with watercolor embellishment.
"The Corporate Toll"
24”x36” Monoprint with watercolor embellishment.
BOB CONGE: I am equally excited by the plans for PLASEEBO. PLANET-X plans to have the official release of the Plaseebo Stone Walker vinyl figure in the Spring.
(Above-right: With motion activated color-changing LED unit on in darkened room)
BOB CONGE: As for new sculpts, I just finished “Frankenduck”. I hope to produce Frankenduck in vinyl later this year. Here is the backstory:
"It all began innocently enough.
Victors mother, who always wanted a daughter, decided one day she would teach her young son to sew. She hoped they might enjoy the shared activity, and so they did, spending hours together in her sewing room in the attic of their spacious 18th century home. Vincent took to sewing like a sailor to rum.
One of Victors most favorite chores in the drafty old house was the setting and emptying of the 67 mouse / rat traps found from the cluttered attic to the dungeon like basement. In time he became comfortable being around dead mice, rats and the occasional squirrel. He even had several mice in his bedroom that he had dried out on the sunny roof outside his window.
So the stage was kinda set when his Uncle Happy showed up one weekend raving about his new hobby that was all the rage in London, taxidermy. Uncle Happy, who had no children of his own, gladly volunteered to set up a small room in the basement and show Vincent the basics. Soon there were furry stuffed corpses of mice appearing all over the Frankensteins home, sitting on old thread spools in conversation, diving from the fireplace mantle, setting on salt shakers when you opened the kitchen cupboard door, wrestling one another on the end table in the front room by the lamp, just everywhere.
One afternoon in the backyard just outside the kitchen, Vincent found the severed head of a duck on the stump where the cook had lopped it off in prep for the evenings dinner. He picked up the bloody head and thought to himself, “What a waste of a perfectly good part”. That very evening Vince had an epiphany and found himself in the basement sewing the ducks head on to the headless body of a squirrel he had removed from a trap in the attic giving birth to “Frankenduck”. Taxidermy extraordinaire !
That summer he also made a Frankenrabbit, Frankensnake, and a Frankencat which became the foundation for his later work and the rest as they say is history."
(“FRANKENDUCK” Copyright 2019 Bob Conge)TOYSREVIL: Share with us, WHO you are and what you do?
BOB CONGE: I am a tinker, a follower of muses, day dreamer, night owl, purveyor of magic, high wire act, and maybe not. I am and always have been in love with making things that occur to me. It is what I do and who I am. It is my only voice in this wilderness of noise. It is a path without end that I follow each day.
www.plaseebo.net
www.bobconge.com
illustrators.net/conge
