Bryan Billingsley likens his new exhibition, Shipwrecked Pirate Cowboy!, and its reception to visiting Disneyland -- and then peeking behind the scenes.
"You get to see Disneyland, and then you go to the back, where the food is being served and you see the façade," he said. "You see the dumpsters and the characters out of costume."
Billingsley (graduate-art) will showcase his graduate thesis exhibition today through March 31 in Zoller Gallery. A reception including barbecue, Red Bull and a disco ball will be held at 5 tonight and will continue "until the dancing stops," Billingsley said.
The disco ball will be accompanied by a sculptural piece of cascading skulls, representing the correlation between celebration and destruction, he said.
He said his paintings, which range from abstract to representative, will line the walls of the gallery. Many of the paintings are drawn from his imagination or past experiences, he said.
"I grew up in Texas and New Mexico, so there's this desolate desert landscape in my past that represents a lot of my experience in life," Billingsley said.
The paintings are all related, although not concretely. Images range from a representation of a disco ball and skull to a large yellow painting of a pink car, he said.
"Art is about posing questions," he said. "The last thing I want to be doing is telling somebody -- there has to be diversity."
He added artist Hans Holbein's work was influential, particularly Holbein's painting "The Ambassadors." The painting depicts two wealthy men posing for a portrait, with an anamorphic skull at their feet.
"It is a reminder that no matter how much power and wealth you have, we're all mortal," he said. "I think about mortality and society a lot, and how we stay distracted by things other than reality."
Billingsley said he did not decide to study art until post undergraduate -- he holds a degree in speech communication from Texas State University. He didn't pursue a MFA in art until after several years of working in technology, he said.
"I was working for Intel, and did not want to be 75 years old and think 'This is what I did,' " he said.
Friend Jamie DiSarno (graduate-new media) said she is most struck by Billingsley's creativity in his work.
"I think he's really inventive," she said. "He's got quite the imagination, that is humorous and grotesque at the same time."
