Colorful, Gay & Gross: Artist Cody Bond
Each week, 614now will be selecting an artist with an upcoming event and doing a small feature on them. Columbus is such a city rich with wonderfully talented artists and often it is difficult to pick who to feature next, so if you’re an artist interested in being featured in 614now, sound off in the comments!
This week our featured artist is Cody Bond, a wonderfully weird guy that has been floating around in the Columbus ether for a while now. He is soft spoken but underneath the calm exterior is an artist bursting with the strange and queer machinations of something hilarious, sinister and as he puts it, “gross.” He recently worked with Nina West for her upcoming annual Heels of Horror show. We had the opportunity to chat with Cody about what inspires him and how Columbus has shaped his artist aesthetic and what he’d tell a freshman version of himself.
How would you describe your aesthetic and how did you find yourself doing the kind of art you do? Was it a natural progression?
I’d like to describe my aesthetic as weird and gross yet marketable. It has always been hugely important for me to create art that either makes people laugh or feel uncomfortable because I never had the talent or patience to create things that were nearly as beautiful as my peers. I’ve got 90s cartoons to thank for the lack of attention span and my attraction to the gross and weird.
What’s inspired you most recently?
DRAG QUEENS. Drag queens are a huge inspiration. To be able to blur the lines between what is beautiful and what is ugly or what is sophisticated and what is funny is just so cool and that is what I try to incorporate into my designs.
Who’s your favorite Drag Queen that isn’t Nina West?
It’s a tie between Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamo. Trixie has the most interesting visual aesthetic and is basically a real life cartoon, and Katya has the most absurd sense of humor, and struggles with anxiety in a way I totally relate to as an artist and also as a very flawed human person.
How has Columbus affected your art and life as an artist?
Columbus has such a huge artist community that the rest of the country just does not realize. Just being able to live in an affordable city and make a living creating art is unheard of, and yet so many of my friends are able to do it! Columbus has allowed me a place to live and work with people I would never be able to anywhere else because we have a sense of community without competition and that is a beautiful thing.
You’re a graduate of CCAD, what’s one piece of advice that you’d give to a freshman Cody Bond?
You don’t have to move to NYC or Chicago to work as an artist. Don’t compare your ambition with someone else’s. And be confident with your work, because no one can do what you do as good as you can.
Cody Bond is an illustrator, living with his boyfriend Andy in Harrison West. He is currently living the dream, getting paid to create weird art and you can find more of his work on his site, www.lolcodybond.com
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