Alex Pardee

Alex Pardee Born and raised in Antioch, California, Alex Pardee is an up and coming artist who is breaking down many figurative aesthetic barriers. With a style molded from years of horror movies, comic books, old school gangster rap, and severe depression and anxiety, Alex’s style is simultaneously horrific and fascinating. Alex’s struggle within himself had a positive outcome that he intends to share with anyone with an open mind, eyes, and ears. At the age of 14, Alex was diagnosed with anxiety and depression.He was hospitalized for months, growing restless as the doctors tried to find the right combination of pills to make him back to â€Å"normal. † However, pills and therapy weren’t the treatment Alex needed. To keep himself busy during his days at the hospital, he drew to pass the time. His drawings became more elaborate and twisted as the number of days he spent behind white doors built up. When he was released, there was no turning back. As a chil d, Alex enjoyed newspaper comics. He and his sister would trace the comics and add their own captions.Alex Pardee has always been drawn (no pun intended) to â€Å"different† art, whether it be old movies like The Dark Crystal and Star Wars, graffiti, skateboard art, or the likes of Strawberry Shortcake. The first twisted comic that captured his interest was The Maxx, created by Sam Keith. Before he found The Maxx, he never took a liking to comic books, thinking they were all superhero nonsense. This dark, untidy comic about the tragic happenings of a teenage girl changed his view of the comic industry as a whole and inspired his own twisted, powerful, unkempt style.As far as education, Alex has no art degrees of any sort under his belt. When he was a kid, he wanted to be Bobo Fett. But, during high school, his dream was actually to attend film school, but that dream remained dormant due to his extremely introverted personality. The thought of social interactions during projec ts prevented him from pursuing that career. He chose art because he knew he could easily do that from the comfort and safety of his own home. â€Å"What inspires you? † is the most common and hated question that Alex is asked.The possibilities of that answer are always so complex and hard to materialize that he often gives simple answers that leave inquirers unsatisfied. To simplify the near novel-length answer, â€Å"at two it was Star Wars. At four it was Disneyland. At six it was my parents. At nine it was Garbage Pail Kids. At 14 it was Robocop. At 15 it was The Maxx. At 16 it was Street Fighter. At 17 it was graffiti. At 20 it was the discovery of ’zines and self-publishing. At 21 it was Photoshop. At 22 it was Half-Life. At 23 it was painting. At 25 it was screen-printing.At 26 it was Aqua Teen Hunger Forceand Adult Swim. At 30 it was Zerofriends. At 35 it was Chloe (his girlfriend). † Alex Pardee began with small drawings on scratch paper or in notebooks. Once his skills and techniques improved, he made photocopies of his sketches and rough copies of his books and began spreading them like wildfire around his town. Copies were strewn about waiting rooms, public restrooms, magazines, newspapers, and anywhere else he could think of putting them with the hopes that someone would recognize his talent and efforts.This continued until 1999, when a handful of other artists encouraged him to have his books professionally printed. To pay for printing expenses, he got a job at a toy store. He had the job for nine years and maintained a steady love/hate relationship throughout. In the first year at his toy store occupation, Alex released his first book, My Book of Colors. After the release, he began devoting all his time, blood, sweat, and tears into his skyrocketing career. Since then, he has released the book series Bunnywith and The Secrets of Hollywood.These releases branched out into calendars, clothing, posters, plush dolls, figurines, a nd multiple art exhibits. He is a member of the art groups Cardboard City and Zerofriends, which recently opened their own store in San Francisco, California. Alex has done artwork for the bands The Used, Aiden, In Flames, and Cage. His artwork for The Used’s album In Love and Death depicted a signature Pardee character named Chadam, whose story was made into a Warner Bros short film. He also did design and artwork for the movie Sucker Punch. Alex Pardee’s horrifically moving artwork has captured the interest of many around the world.His unique style has inspired that of many upcoming artists to create equally disturbing and fantastic pieces. Not only does he have thousands of sketches, paintings, and short stories to shed light on the warped convolutions of his mind, but he has a less than perfect back story and wicked sense of sarcasm to verify it. That’s all part of what makes him so fascinating. An intelligent and talented man, Alex Pardee is an icon of pers istence and individuality for thousands upon thousands of aspiring artists and seemingly lost inhabitants of Earth.