(altered vintage medical illustration)
Fence Books used it in creating the cover of my son's first published book of poetry, which won the 2010 Fence Modern Poetry Series, and is available through
http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9781934200391/nick-demske.aspx
The New Gnus Literary Journal has selected an image from the series, "Fun with the Elderly", subtitled "Checking the Coin Return", to use as their cover illustration for Issue #2, released 10/2011. www.thenewgnus.wordpress.com
AIDS Baby (found objects)
The Nature of Love (mixed media, 4 ft. iron wagon wheel hoop) Winner 2008 William and Jeanne Batten Merit Award for Sculpture, Midwest Museum of American Art 3oth Regional Juried Exhibit.
"A Child Can't Be Fed With Paintings of Bread."
The artist accepting his award
The Birthday Party (oil paint) cover art for The Bathroom poetry e-zine Issue 3 2008
Terms of Endurement (mixed media, wagon wheel hoop) accepted 30th annual MMofAA Exhibit, 2008
Still Life with Kohlrabi (watercolor) Submitted as example of work to hopefully be accepted as a member of the LaGrange, IL Art League. It was instead mistakenly entered by them into a juried show and won First Place.
sold
Birth of Dreams (dry pastel)
sold
Conversations with Myself (oil pastel, pencil)
Apocalypse (acrylic)
Car Crash on the Damen Bridge (oil pastel)
Atom Boy (digitally altered vintage illustrations)
Across the Universe (oil and dry pastel, acrylic paint)
Arrested Development (acrylic)
Buyer's Dilemma
Auctioned at The Box Factory for the Arts Cigar Box Art Show 2000
St. Joe, MI
What is the value of art? Top of box reads, "Contains Fifty Dollar Bill- Do Not Open!" If this is merely a cigar box wrapped in Chinese newspaper, then it is worth only the fifty dollar contents. If this is a work of art, then by destroying the piece to get to the money, it loses value. Although the two buttons on top of the box spell "N-O," the temptation to open it is furthered by the key left in the lock. Perhaps it could be carefully opened to retrieve the money and still retain value as "art?"
Sorry- the box has been rigged with piano wire- upon opening the lid the fifty dollar bill gets sliced into twelve pieces, leaving the owner with nothing intact except the message inside,
"Art is More than Money."
sold
Buried Alive (acrylic)
Inspired by the sights and colors seen on a walk through the Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago.
sold
Enlightenment (mixed media)
Devil Boy (oil pastel)
Higher Power (digitally altered stock photos)
God's Chalice (raku-fired wheel thrown pottery) The name was inspired by the glazes, which appear to be oceans, the cosmos, the beginnings of creation.
God's Cereal Bowl (raku fired wheel thrown pottery)
(Both pieces accepted and sold at the 26th Midwest Museum of American Art Regional Exhibit, 2004.)
HOUSE ON FIRE (oil pastel)
"It's For You" business phone (acrylic, etc. on working telephone)
Multiple Vision (oil and dry pastel, gesso)
sold
But is it art? (eBay purchase)
I Heard the Angels Sing (acrylic)
Time Clown (mixed media)
sold
Hopefully you're still looking
(that's not the title- I just mean, hopefully you're still looking...)
Too Much Coffee, Man! (colored pencil)
sold
Prozac Dreams (acrylic)
St. Andrew at the Refineries (acrylic) Inspired by a wierd dream- sea gulls are pulling fish from a Whiting, IN oil refinery holding container. I pick up a huge dead carp-like fish and slit it open. A flood of black bile and toxins comes pouring out of it with such force it nearly annihilates me .
Death Is Next (mixed media)
This sweet little pot was stolen from the Acorn Theater in Three Oaks MI. If you're ever in someone's house and see it-
tell them I hope they enjoy it with my blessings.
Feeling Safe Yet? (mixed media, found objects) For only a nickel you too can take a potshot at all the incarcerated suspects, while Jingo the Monkey, dressed as Uncle Sam, plays an inciteful tune for you on his cymbals. The resemblance of Jingo the Monkey to any U.S. President profiting from the war in Iraq is merely deliberate.
Harbor Country News, Oct. 2005
(news clipping)
Local Artist Honored
Three Oaks artist David Demske has once again gained recognition for his controversial assemblages, made from objects found in junk yards and garage sales. Demske was presented with the Best Mixed Media award when The Midwest Museum of American Art announced the award winners in the 27th Elkhart Juried Regional exhibition during the opening reception on Friday evening, October 21, for members and artists who entered the competition. Over 400 were in attendance during this "Oscars of Our Artworld" ceremony of artists from a 21-county region of northern Indiana and southern Michigan. The exhibition surveys all media and represents 130 artists out of 282 entering. The judges selected a total of 168 works of art from a field of 521. This major show allows the Michiana public to become familiar with artists in their own "backyard" and is the touch-stone survey of the region's most talented. Each artist is allowed to submit only two pieces, created within the past year. Both Demske's entries were accepted into the show.
Inspired by the incarceration of Ibrahim Parlak and his struggle to win citizenship, Demske's piece, entitled, "Feeling Safe Yet?" questions the tactics of our country's attempts at procuring the illusion of homeland security. In 2003, Demske won the Best Mixed Media award for his scathing look at the reckless dispensation of mood-altering medications entitled, "Are You Experienced?" [SEE 'Experienced' BELOW] In 2004 both of Demske's raku-fired ceramics entries were purchased through the exhibition.
The awards presented to the artists this year total over $23,000. The judges who selected the 27th Elkhart Juried Regional exhibition were Nick Antonakis, Visual Arts Department Head and Professor of Art at Grand Rapids Community College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and his colleague Robin vanRooyen, Professor at Art at GRCC. The jurors stated, "We were particularly impressed by the conceptual, technical, and creative presence exhibited by the sculptural, ceramic, and three-dimensional mixed media artworks. We felt a consistency of vision, concept, and execution that achieved high levels and maturity in many cases."
Eyroning (digitally altered vintage illustrations)
Bad Dog Girl! (digitally altered vintage photo)
Cover Art for Thieves Jargon Issue#179
Depression (acrylic)
Flaming Salamander (acrylic, salamander) A friend who paints trucks found a dried-out salamander, hung from its neck with coat hanger wire, on the mirror inside a truck cab. He immediately thought of me and presented it as a gift. It was used in this piece to rectify a rather ignoble death. The references in my work to flaming chairs may be based on a childhood activity with my older brother. We were about four and five years old- he had swiped a book of matches from a gas station, and we were standing on our fence, lighting the matches, and tossing them into our neighbor's garage window. Later that afternoon, a fire truck came and extinguished an overstuffed armchair which was in the garage. It wasn't until I was thirty-five years old that I had the realization my brother and I had set the chair on fire.
Incubation (dry pastel)
sold
Nude Sketch (marker)
Joy (photo by artist)
Family Reunion (acrylic)
Philomena's Hands (mixed media) Inspired by a random sighting of an article found on the internet.
Philomena Musil, of Beach, N.D. was lost in a blizzard on Jan. 11, 1917 at 5 p.m. She was found 18 hours later in a deserted settler's shack at 11 a.m. Both her hands and feet were frozen, she had both hands amputated, leaving only the thumb on her right hand.
The article had me thinking about all the things this young girl missed out on, or couldn't do in 1917,
eking out an existence on a farm in the middle of nowhere, without her hands.
Somewhere I found a doll missing her hands and decided to create this assemblage.
Later, a pair of molded hands cast from a dead woman was found in a junkyard.
This piece nearly drove me mad, trying to assemble it for a show. My eyesight is too weak to be stringing pearls,
which represents the falling snow. I was driven to enter the work, however, and had a feeling for a long time it was "haunted."
It was accepted into the 27th Midwest Museum of American Art's 2005 Juried Regional Exhibit.
Rest in Peace, Philomena.
The Embrace (oil pastel)
Salvage Removal (marker)
Last Supper Burning (digitally altered images)
Soul Sacrifice (acrylic)
The Day They Crucified My Timex (Acrylic, oil and dry pastel, gesso)
Things Fall Apart (mixed media)
The Ingrate's Prayer (mixed media) "If You Won't Pull the Plug, Would You At Least Please Throw the Switch?"
Life Support- either by machine or pharmaceuticals- may not always provide a welcome extra few hours of existence.
The balls are wrapped in actual doctor's prescriptions for industrial strength meds prescribed to mental patients. Hundreds of these prescriptions were found in a junk yard. So much for client confidentiality.
Accepted at the 28th Midwest Museum of American Art Regional Juried Exhibit.
Dream Landscape (oil pastel)
Lust (bisque pottery string holder)
and no, it's not a flipped image
Pinky Scouthead (digitally altered vintage illustrations)
bonk (acrylic)
Are You Experienced? (mixed media, found objects, prescription drug bottles with clown head toppers)
In 2003, Demske won the Best Mixed Media award for his scathing look at the reckless dispensation of mood-altering medications entitled, "Are You Experienced?" Museum of Modern American Art 25th Regional Juried Exhibit.
sold
The Pain of Survival (oil pastel)
Many years after creating this, based partly on dreams, an amazingly similar description of this work was found in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. They may have copied off me. Accepted 2002 MMofAA Exhibit.
Have Some? (mixed media, found objects) Vintage Valentine's Day heart-shaped candies box. Glass jar with metal lid marked "Have Some" imbedded in box top contains rusty fish hooks. Inside box is medical illustration of heart, pierced numerously with more rusty fish hooks.
An old funny postcard, to leave you with a smiley.*
This has been a Monkey Nuts Production.
All images copyrighted and protected in the United States by illusion only
Feel like expressing yourself? Write the artist at [email protected].