Bio
Born in 1989, ‘Cody TheCreative’ grew up in suburban New York, and started drawing at two years old. For most of his early childhood, he rarely put his pencil down. Among his earliest endeavors, he paused VHS tapes to draw his favorite characters, as well as those appearing on album covers and baseball cards. At just eight years old, he had a solo exhibition in Greenburgh, NY titled, Heroes and Icons.
For most, the need to fit in is defining. Cody, however, was simply not interested in being defined. Free to define himself, he spent the majority of his preadolescent and adolescent years exploring the boundaries of his own individuality. While this initially took him off the art wagon, the stars realigned while finishing a Creative Writing degree at SUNY Purchase. He took a life-drawing course with noted visual arts professor, Roger Hendricks, as an elective, assuming it would be a simple way to earn an ‘A’ and complete his degree. The next thing he knew, he became the teacher's assistant (for no credit!). Things really got interesting while taking a summer class with landscape artist, Todd J. Gordon, who provided Cody the tools to explore nature as a subject. Up until that time, Cody had only drawn people. This exploration of art through nature (or nature through art) was a revelation, and has become one of Cody's favorite creative endeavors.
In his late twenties, a desire to communicate on a visceral level sparked a relationship with abstract expressionism giving him not only new techniques, but an entirely new vocabulary to learn and explore. By the time the pandemic hit, four years later, he was primed for a creative breakthrough.
Cody's approach to every new technique/medium/vocabulary is to gain sufficient control so that he can rapidly begin exploring the boundaries once again. This routine of conforming only as long as it takes for him to understand the rules so that he can confidently break them has become the process he returns to over and over as he adds new media and explores new visions.
This method and the freedom to be different has lead to the creation of a variety of projects including some large bodies of work such as: Just an Easel and a Dream (pastel work); PennyPopArt (acrylic on copper); Cody's Wearable Art (hand-painted clothing & sneakers); Splattered Skies (acrylic on canvas).
