Friends of The Sphere #3: David Owen Beyers
David Owen Beyers Aka Boatz is a New York-based muralist, musician, multimedia artist, and connoisseur of the weird.
I have never met Boatz, but back in 2017, he sent me a package of piles of cool stuff and I have been following his work ever since. His visual arts are inspired by late 80's / early 90's MTV style, cartoon, monsters, and neon. He also doesn’t own any boats, but I do love the enigmatic flavor he brings to the table and what follows is a good representation of that.
Yes, that’s me in the lower right corner.
Acrylic paintings on wood board, with hand-painted patterns on wooden frames. Getting psychedelic results from simple patterns and color theory on the wooden frames.
Photos from Boatz’ workspace / apartment setting
Influenced by the late mythologist Joseph Campbell, and his interview series with Bill Moyers. The picture with me next to the long painting is called "Masks of Eternity". In that interview series, the Mask of Eternity represents the transcendent space between pairs of opposites. The painting is supposed to represent our inability to see through the mask of eternity because it would be too much for us to handle.
Yin-yangs are tyte.
My spirit animal is Dolphins.
I'm heavily into backwards thinking, doing things wrong on purpose, DIY aesthetic, LOFI media. I collect VHS tapes. My favorite movie is "The Toxic Avenger"
I have been really influenced by 80's r & b, and Funk.
I’m an experimental, electronic, noise, beat producer. Record solo as Boatz, and am in an improv, noise, hip-hop duo called Bunny. I don't play typical instruments, but am interested in seeing what happens when effects boxes are plugged back into themselves, and turning knobs.
The psychedelic collage is the cover of Bunny's first full release "Zoom Zoomba" which is also a split release with Everyone and Their Mother. Bunny's main goals are to get people to dance, and to touch the eternal by losing control of consciousness in the moment. Touching the eternal does not happen that often, but when it does and is shared between myself and my bandmate, it is great.
I recently got a Boss SP 505-Sampler, and have been having a lot of fun with it!
I have been painting murals at various DIY music venues in Brooklyn, and Boston since around 2011. I also have murals at friends’ houses and a pizza place!
This year I began making movie drawings after being heavily influenced by Ghanaian artists represented by Deadly Prey Gallery in Chicago. Their Instagram is bonkers. Very low-brow but a high concept. In the past, it was hard to mail movie posters to Ghana from the USA. Local artists would make their own movie posters. To get people interested in seeing the movie, they would infuse the art with African culture, voodoo, and ultra-violence.
My versions of movie posters have a lot of my influences in them. Body horror, gore, 80's, 90's MTV cartoon aesthetic, etc.
There is a Boatz music vid in the works.
Last year I made 2 t-shirts and am hoping to do some more of that too. Here is a t-shirt design inspired by “THE THING”.
I am into training my brain to experience synesthesia. Hearing rhythms and music in visual patterns. Designating shapes and colors for sounds.