“Nearly all of the pieces featured in this little publication were created in 2009 or 2010: a highly transformative period of time in my life. I began 2009 full of anxiety over the collapse of industrial civilization, almost all of my thinking dealt in speculating on the future. I was drawing a lot of ruins; ruins of a once high level civilization, landscapes of twisted metal, abandoned buildings and scattered garbage. Throughout this world strode weary wanderers, paranoids, thieves and criminals. There’s a streak of danger running throughout much of my 2009/2010 work. In the past, many of my characters looked as if they were hanging out rather comfortably (for the most part). These current characters are a bit more skittish, on edge. The spaces they inhabit are often unsettling… about to crumble or implode.

I’m obviously projecting a lot of my own fears and unease onto these drawings. The world that I’ve portrayed here is a broken world, a variation of a world I feel I’m being rapidly pushed towards. I find myself taking much of what I find around me and throwing it out into the future; I draw it into the future. I believe that I do this because I spend so much time in the future, mentally speaking. Time is a merciless tyrant, an enemy with whom I’ve been mentally battling this past year. I’ve always had time fears but never have they been so intense. There’s a fear of growing older, a fear of losing my youth (decay). And therein arises an urgency to “do something with myself” before I’m old and stuck in some kind of debt-trap or miserable job.

There’s a fear of the future and the large calamities that hide within it (nearly everything feels so uncertain and fragile to me). And then there’s a tremendous fear of destitution, as I’m always just barely making it by with each passing week. This overarching theme of “time fear” binds my work together and reveals the fractured nature of my mind (so much of which still resides in the future).

I seem to live in two worlds: the present and the soon-to-be. This collection of artwork is very personal to me, as I’m sure you can understand. I hope that you who identify with my time-based worries will bond with these pieces, perhaps finding your own time fears in my drawings and paintings, and I hope those of you less inclined to worry about time will find something here to ponder on and smile about.”

— Matt Lock