The world is full of more BS, media lies and governmental corruption now than ever. But meet Steve Cutts: an artist that calls it all out beautifully!
By Chere Di Boscio
It’s a sad fact: most of us walk through the streets with our heads down, staring at our phones. We commute in crowded subways, stuffed cheek-to-jowl with strangers we don’t make eye contact with. When we get home, we turn on a television or computer and listen to people who are literally programming us. Then, we have dinner. But we’re eating foods we have no connection to. Not their harvesting, growing, or if you’re a meat eater, killing.
In short, modern life is all about disconnection. Materialism. Loneliness. And no one knows that – and expresses it – better than artist Steve Cutts.
Ironic beginnings
Once upon a time, brilliant British artist Steve Cutts used to work at an advertising agency. He served global corporate clients including Coca Cola, Google, Reebok, Virgin, Toyota and more. But then one day, he decided that using his creative talents to promote the sale of more crap that no one really needs was a bad idea. So he quit to become a freelance animator and illustrator.
I first discovered Cutts’ work when we saw one of his short animation projects simply called ‘Man’, which basically sums up why I started Eluxe. It’s a brutal assessment of how we humans abuse the Earth, without barely a thought.
Using Adobe After Effects, Toon Boom Harmony, Photoshop, Cinema 4D and Manga Studio, Cutts has created much more hard-hitting animation since then. His short films include:
- ‘Wake Up!’ which depicts the true cost of our ever-‘evolving’ electronic gadgets
- ‘What a Hunt’, in support of animal rights
- ‘In The Fall’, a critique of our enslavement to the office
Now that he works for himself, Cutts can select his clients and has chosen to work with those aligned more with his own personal ethics. Namely The Gaia Foundation, and LMFM, amongst others. He’s also created a couch gag for ‘The Simpsons’, and has worked for major networks like Adult Swim and Channel 4 in the UK.
The art of the meme
It’s a cliche that ‘a picture’s worth a thousand words.’ And in the age of the meme, that’s even more true.
I adore Steve Cutts as an artist, because his work sums up beautifully just about everything I personally despise. Particularly:
- the killing of animals for consumption and sport
- the abuse of humans to produce items no one really needs or wants
- the absurdity and meaninglessness of the 9-to-5 corporate lifestyle
- the environmental and spiritual destruction wreaked by the consumer society
- the crassitude of what we are told is ‘news’
- the global totalitarianism of corporations
…and more.
These are themes that are rarely, if ever, explored in popular media or art. Vampires, zombies and vapid action films dominate the silver screens, whilst manufactured pop and empty electronic music fills the airwaves. TV as an artistic medium is all but dead.
This could potentially be a good thing, if it weren’t being replaced by video games that de-sensitise us to violence. Not to mention YouTube ‘haul videos’ that encourage ridiculous levels of consumption, the mindless internet surfing of clickbait sites and of course, p*rn. In addition, it seems media platforms like Netflix are constantly shoving anti-family, anti-spiritual and anti-love agendas down our throats.
Inspired influences
Indeed, Steve Cutts didn’t need TV to gain inspiration for his art.
He told the Reverb press: “I grew up looking at artists like Robert Crumb and Gary Larson, so I’m sure there’s some of their influence in there somewhere. I tend to view the world in a kind in slightly abstract terms and often see humor in dark situations. In terms of comedians, Louis CK has a certain brutal honesty to his comedy I can appreciate. George Carlin was great too,” he says.
With its mindless masses blindly following corporate commands, some say that Cutts’ art is depressing. But I would say it’s more thought-provoking, which is undoubtedly a good thing.
Humanity has the power to be great in so many ways, and yet at the same time we are fundamentally flawed. I think it’s the conflict between these two that fascinates me the most,” Cutts continued. “As a race of beings we’ve made incredible achievements in such a short space, but at the same time we seem so overwhelmingly intent on destroying ourselves and everything around us.”
“It would be very interesting to see where we’ll be in a hundred years. The term insanity is intriguing – it’s almost like we’re encouraged to act in a way that seems genuinely insane when you look at it objectively, but it’s often accepted as normal right now. I think we will have to evolve beyond our current thinking and way of doing things if we want to survive.”
Let there be no doubt: if ever there was a time when humankind needed to seriously wake up to the issues Cutts is highlighting, it’s now.
For more information, please visit here. Follow artist Steve Cutts on YouTube here.
All images from copyright Steve Cutts.
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