Fred Tomaselli blends all-consuming cosmological visions of aesthetic excess with a natural appreciation of the mundane and banal world of ordinary America with its hidden subcultures and associated creative obsessions. He finds inspiration in ‘low’ art forms and ‘counter cultural styles – air-brushed poster and customised van art, car and surf culture, and of course psychedelia with its roots in a bastardized Orientalism –[which] all share what he describes as "busyness for its own sake".’
Tomaselli rescues disdained aesthetic idioms from their terminal banishment in the hell of decadence and kitsch: Italian Renaissance pietra dura inlays, the fascination of Art Deco with precious exotic materials and surfaces and the charming clunkiness of early computer graphics are all pulled from the bottom drawer of art history and organised with way too much decorative repetition, exacting symmetry and luminous intensity. The artist politely stands back as creator and assumes the role of obsessive medium, subjecting himself to Sisyphean efforts in inexpressive repetition and hiding behind the diligent collaging of mountains of found material.
The indulgence in excessive detail and the comprehensive display of varieties of species, plants or drugs reveals an unscientifically encyclopaedic tendency, which attempts to capture the universal through the excessive accumulation of the tiniest details. Wild hot-rod flames, gyrating psychedelic swirls and blinking daisy chains of eyes, smiles and flower buds are combined to create Blakean apocalyptic visions.
