I have a career background in entertainment as a sculptor, designer, Fabricator, and painter, that started with special fx makeup and props, and ended with stop-motion animation. Now I am an independent artist, but my sources of inspiration have never changed. If i were to point to one film in particular which truly inspired where I wanted to take the invasion, it would be john carpenter’s the thing, but set in the world of animation. What i failed to consider at the time was that taking on The Thing’s monster from space also meant taking on the thing’s subtext, a subtext which turned out to be disturbingly similar to my own. What’s really below the surface of the people around you? Is it even them? What’s below your own surface? I did not realize i was asking these same questions the thing asks until it became in retrospect.
Now, I know how this is going to sound, but what I discovered through working on the invasion is that the invader is a real being living inside of me, and it has been there longer than i can remember. You see, when i was a baby, my lower abdomen was cut open and a handful of my innards were ripped from my body. I believe it was in that moment, before i was stitched back together, the invader snuck inside me, and it has nestled there ever since. The invader has absorbed everything i have seen and experienced. It is as much a part of me as i am. My artwork, it is really ours, i do not work alone. The invader communicates through our art. It tells me things. Looking back, i see the invader has always been doing this, i just didn’t realize it until now.
When the invasion began, I thought the invader just wanted to have fun. It claimed the purpose it had in mind was to play with our childhood love of drawing cartoons. It told me it found comfort there. It said it wanted to fit in by not fitting in at all, and invading the cartoon world was how it was going to do this. So, i gave the invader complete freedom, and it had a great deal more to say than I ever could have imagined. now, the invader and i examine humanity; our own, and that of the people around us. The invader and i, we do not draw from my heart, we draw from my guts. Our job, our purpose, is to share with the world the beauty in pain and suffering.
Ryan Keith
And The invader