Aficionados of great art, welcome to my cubicle of emotion. My name is Pascal Warbley, and I am the artist who the internet (after a major social media push I started myself) has finally begun calling the “Office Appliance Artist.”
As I’m sure it is only a matter of days, if not hours, until I am known all over the world, it is with great charity that I am going to take the time to let you all in on my creative processes. To begin, just like all the greats before me, I look at the boring mundanity that is everyday life, and I see potential to create something much harder to distinguish at first glance.
Unlike those before me, I don’t use pencil, brush, or even colored pencil. No, my artisan instruments are simply a printer and a photocopier that coincidentally happen to be available to me at the office building where I currently work (until this takes off). These tools allow me to make art that is evocative in a way that is obvious and open to interpretation at the same time. I make my creations out of recycled photos, ads, charts, etc. Really any images that connect to me intrinsically and also happen to be printable from my work computer.
With the printer, I am able to do spins on classic pieces of pop culture such as famous photos, commercials, or the “Bagel Mondays” memo Cynthia sent out last Wednesday. The pieces go out of their way to leave the blanks that art enjoyers want to fill themselves. The ink fades and drops off altogether, seemingly at random, or it will often cover important details with inexplicably smears and splotches.
Once these infantile classics are printed, I create what I call “Xerox realism” with the photocopier near Alan’s desk. With my two patented techniques I can turn any photo or drawing that utilizes color, sharpness, and a large simple-to-recognize subject into a dark brooding work of the abstract. The harsh shades and lines that come from these designs tell a story of sadness, heartbreak, and longing. Which is a much more raw emotion than the story told by the original piece, which was “hamburger.”
I know of artists that spent their whole life looking for just the perfect shade of black. A black so deep you could stare into it for hours and go insane. Little did they know it was right here waiting for them. I first discovered the magnificent hue while trying to make a copy of a Dilbert comic I found online that I thought my coworker Josh might enjoy. It was about casual Fridays, which Josh has mentioned before.
Note how nearly all of the horse’s defining details are obscured or lost completely through the process of Xerox realism. Then ask yourself, why would an artist do this? You’ll never find the answer.
Seeing my designs here on the webpages barely scratches the surface of what they’re capable of. I implore you to print this page. Maybe multiple times. Watch how these images are filled with life as your printer is emptied of ink. Then, as you shed tears into the indescribable void that lays before you, remember the name Pascal Warbley. Remember the Office Appliance Artist, and most importantly, remember that this technique and these images are all protected under copyright and you owe me anywhere from $15 to $4,000 dependent on how it printed.