Gary Hirsch Art Wear

When I was growing up in Cleveland Heights Ohio I had a lot of nightmares- giant hands swooping down from the attic, grabbing me out of bed and swallowing me whole where I would land in a stomach that was really a graveyard populated by zombies. On these nights my Dad would crawl out of bed throw on a robe and sit next to me with a pen and paper. “You want to show me what you’re afraid of?” He would ask. We would stay up for hours. I would draw these creatures and my Dad would help me name them. I collected hundreds: ‘Swap Creature’, ‘Red Zombie’ ‘Giant Hand’, to name a few. After a while the nightmares would come a bit less frequently. When asked about this, my Dad said, “If you can create them, then you can also erase them.” This story still influences my art today. I am deeply interested in visual stories and creating art that helps people connect with themselves and each other. In particular creating images capturing the middle of a narrative that invites interaction with the viewer so they create their own “before and after” to the visual moment. My current focus is on work that is public, interactive, helpful and participatory. I started The Botjoy project (www.botjoy.com), 10 years ago as an exploration of how art can help, bring joy to a community, and connect strangers. For this series I have painted over 56,000 small domino robots that are left throughout the world as unexpected surprises to reward people that slow down and notice more about their environment. There are a series of public murals that also encompass this project. Giant robots populate these murals with each figure designed with a simple, but engaging question that invite viewers to interact with the art by answering these questions using digital photography and hash tags on social media. Over time, these on-line collections create new community insight. I have public works in Portland, San Jose, New Orleans, Phoenix, Dallas, Melbourne, Madrid, and Boulder