Kez Bizarre
(b. 1968), Dunedin

• Comic Art

Kez is a punk. She produces drawings and paintings and music. The attitude that runs through her work is one that sees all the institutions of our world as paper-thin veneers covering evil oppressive and dehumanising forces. The nightmarish severing of limbs and extreme violence that Kez depicts is the inverted expression of the mild-mannered institutional violence that occurs behind the banal office doors and the smiling, well-mannered gatekeepers of the power elite.

There is anger in this work and outrage and screaming and frustration, there is a nasty adrenaline rock ‘n’ roll in it and there is self-prescribed medication in here too.

The drawing style is a crude relative of the underground comics of the ’60s that were banned in New Zealand. The nightmarish, mutant lifeforms recall Hieronymus Bosch. The compositions are classical with the depiction of some climactic action set in the telling theatrical scenes.

These are the drawings that still might get you expelled from school, and this is the music you might listen to when you do.