By Michael Somerby
BOZEMAN – Jarrod Eastman is excited to listen to the new
Tool album, letting the stylings of the Los Angeles-based, post-metal rock and
roll band waft over him as he puts bristle to canvas, chisel and letter stamps
to epoxy clay sculptures.
Tool’s
sounds embody the skateboard, heavy metal, tattoo and “explosive pop culture”
that shaped Eastman, 47, growing up in Phoenix, Arizona, in the 1970s and ’80s, who’s hands
now shape a unique brand of art that straddles some funky line etched between
the likes of Salvador Dali and Joe Sorren, with a twist of Ralph Steadman for
the erratic, seemingly disobedient type of “weird” that Hunter S. Thompson
fostered affinity for.
If one had to neatly package Eastman’s style, it would be dubbed “pop
surrealism,” aka “lowbrow,” a family of visual art that came to fruition in the
late ’70s in
Los Angeles.
A note to remember: “lowbrow” is defined as “not highly
intellectual or cultured.”
Eastman works from his Bozeman home, just north of Montana State
University, where he has lived
with his wife for the past 17 years. The couple moved from Colorado Springs,
realizing Bozeman was a unique town situated at a special coordinate in the
American Rockies.
“We went to Main Street on this beautiful July day, and it was
so quiet, there was nobody downtown,”
Eastman said. “It was this empty, cute little town.” After climbing to
the top of Hyalite Peak, they affirmed there were enough mountains to satisfy
their yearnings.
Today, Bozeman’s Main Street is a far cry from those days of
old. Back
then, according to Eastman, the town’s art offerings were slim, and his
alternative creations, along with a select grouping of other artists and their
work, put him at center stage. At
a minimum, they
caught people’s attention.
“It’s definitely not conservative artwork, and definitely
doesn’t appeal to everybody,” Eastman said. “When I was younger, my stuff was
definitely edgier, people would look at it and say, ‘Wow, you’re an amazing
artist, but could you do something that makes me feel good?’”
Now, with the perspective and grace that comes with
experience, Eastman makes a conscious effort to try and make people objectively
happy with his work. For example, take “Heavyweight,” a sculpture of a rhino
with repurposed furniture wheels for feet. What’s not to smile about?
A majority of his pieces, much like “Heavyweight,” often
feature an animal exhibiting some anthropomorphized behavior.
“I like depicting animals doing human things, and I guess I
always looked at it as this connection to nature,” Eastman said. “I obviously
live in Bozeman for a reason, I’m totally drawn to the mountains.”
The connection to nature runs deeper, considering Eastman
got a degree in zoology
from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where, unbeknownst to him, the
seeds of a career in art were forming deep within.
“I got that degree, but I always just loved writing poetry
and drawing, I just never thought
of it [creative expression]
as a career option, it was really just something I did,” he said. “But talking to my
friends from even high school,
there’s no surprise for them, they’re like, ‘Yeah, you were always doodling on
everything,’ I just never even really noticed.”
That organic approach to his work has carried over
professionally, where spontaneity continues to reign supreme.
And sometimes, it takes a few stabs to get that Goldilocks
composition.
“I like not knowing what I’m going to do when I start. I’ll
draw 20 things out, and 19 of them will be stuff that I don’t even like, and
then I’ll draw one and be like ‘Where’d that come from?’ It’s definitely something that moves
through you. I don’t necessarily have a story when I start, but have it become
presented to me.”
Eastman’s works have this bizarre charm that acts in passive resistance to the realism, buffalos and cliché tribal figures that dominate the galleries of Main Street, carving out a strange niche that ironically adds legitimacy to Bozeman’s art scene. Born out of the “lowbrow” movement, the term feels a misnomer for Eastman’s work: We in the Greater Yellowstone see plenty of buffalo, and bear, and birds depicted on canvas—but how often do you see one on a bicycle? Doesn’t the gross excess of something ultimately render it without intellectual merit?
Visithttps://jarrodeastman.com to see electronic versions of Eastman’s
pieces, and visit Rapscallion Gallery in Bozeman between Sept. 28 and Nov. 13
for an in-person viewing.
