Using black electrical tape, drywall, white paint and a razor blade, CZDM creates works that blend the lines between illustration, sculpture and collage. Or at least that's what he says he does. His method was born out of an odd combination of laziness and fastidiousness. He liked to draw but hated erasing. Liked to paint, but hated painting over. In the tape he found a medium that he could curve, cut, control and keep clean.
After a string of pieces that were made for specific people/events, I finally got to just make one for me. I wanted to keep it simple, but very detailed. I wanted a very old school 40s/50s vibe from the girl initially, but then added the garlands and thought they made the background look almost Victorian. The eyes ended up looking very mysterious and open to interpretation. Some see power, others sex, and some sadness. This was my second time using black spray paint as a mist, and I think it helped add the "Caged" aspect from the title. Sold this one on the first day of the new year.
I was invited to participate in the "Devils & Demons" show at the Urban Folk Art Gallery, so I created this piece for it. I wanted to make something dark but still sexy, and was sketching some stuff on paper and came up with this composition. This was my first time using spray paint on a piece and the results came out pretty good.
For Sale: $300
This was a commission/BonVoyage gift for a friend who'd been in Brooklyn for a decade and was moving to California. I decided to help him take a bit of BK with him. Started with the Brooklyn Dodgers logo, added the girl, then went to town on Brooklyn paraphernalia. Biggie, Bugs (who was born in bk), the bridge, etc. I love the composition in it, the small details, and just the overall vibe of it. Quite happy with it, to say the least.
Made this one for my girlfriend. She was working at a non profit that helped immigrants who'd been detained fight deportation. I knew she liked the image of the Koi fish but I wanted another element, so I added the spear and the hook/fishing line. I thought they told an interesting story in just one panel. Some people think the spear is going through the fish, others think it narrowly missed it and broke the fishing line. I enjoy hearing different peoples take on it.
This was my second commissioned piece. I got the job at the unveiling of the first. I wanted to make this one about authority, and the rebellious attitude some have against it. I wanted it to still be kind of light though. J Dilla has a song called Fuck the Police which has a light almost carefree beat/sample to it. I wanted to emulate juxtaposition in this piece.
This was my first commissioned piece, created for Dr. Joost Van Dreunen and his wife Janelle Benjamin. They asked for a large living room piece, gave me free reign to do whatever I wanted, and I'm glad to say were very pleased with what they got. Without them asking me to do this, who knows if I ever would have started making movable pieces. I can't thank them enough. The piece ended up being about New York City, the place where the two of them first met.
Still a work in progress, this piece came out of a love of old pulp crime novel covers and noir comic books. My pieces up 'til then had been single character portraits. This one was more of a story. Clearly the two have been intimate, but don't trust one another. Maybe it's about people being guarded. Or I just wanted to make a naked girl with a gun. The last panel is just going to be the word "BANG" in an old comic style font.
This was a self portrait of sorts. The molding in my bedroom created the illusion of having three panels, like a comic book and I wanted to work with that. So the first panel is this character sensing that something bad is afoot. See my piece "He'll Never See it Coming" to know what was around the corner for him.
This was the 3rd girl I taped up. She's huge. About 8.5 feet tall, probably that long too. She's cutting herself because...uh, I'm a messed up human being? No, really I wanted to add a painful or wounded element to contradict her strong gaze. I remember listening to Maggot Brain a lot while making this.
Second Girl I ever taped up. This was when I started messing around with a lil more detail. The shininess of the hair, the strands, the tattoos. She's not perfect, but she looks pretty good, I think.
So after the first tape mural got scrapped, I started on this one. Here is when I started making slimmer lines with a razor blade. I felt straight lines were the tapes strongest asset so I wanted to work with that. I wanted to knock off the Pez logo. I think I actually had to do some math/measuring for this one.
This all kind of started because I had a lot of hallway space in my new apartment. I wanted to do a mural but didn't want to have to paint anything over before I left, so I thought I'd use black electrical tape. This was me kind of using the tape like a big marker or a spray can with skinny cap. It's pretty basic, But I didn't want to make it too complicated. This was my first attempt with the medium.
