At the age of eight, Coleman drew a series of representations of the Stations of the Cross and the martyrdom of the saints. The tension between physical agony and ecstasy with spirituality still riddles his work. By the age of ten, his painting of "garbage" won him an award and the acclaim of the then President' s wife, Lady Bird Johnson.
Depraved
Coleman' s paintings are produced in acrylics and often executed with homemade single-hair brushes, allowing him to work in the obsessive details that have become his trademark. His graphic colours and intricate symbols lend an intensity that recalls Medieval illuminated manuscripts. They are frequently self-portraits, revealing Coleman' s own tortured soul. Pictures such as Faith (1996) show his head stripped of its flesh into a skull, the centre of which depicts the abyss.
A further Coleman trademark is his fondness for dystopias: paintings that detail the collapsing urban environment, populated by the terrified and bitter faces of the depraved, lonely, desperate, murderous and insane. In these images, Coleman recognises that Hell is other people but perhaps more importantly, he also understands the fallen state of his own humanity.
However, more recent works, such as The Book Of Revelations (1999), also celebrate his love and friendships with the people Coleman describes as "kin"; an extended family of outsiders, visionaries and rebellious spirits. He also paints portraits of those he perceives a degree of kinship with, from biological ' freaks' such as Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, to misanthropic visionaries like the author Celine and serial killer Carl Panzram.
Two volumes of Coleman' s paintings have been published: Cosmic Retribution (Feral House and Fantagraphics) and Original Sin: The Visionary Art of Joe Coleman (Gates of Heck), as well as Coleman' s account of the life of Jesus Christ entitled Man of Sorrows (Gates of Heck).
Explode
But this artist' s work consists of more than painting. As a child, Coleman set fires in his school playground, awakening a pyrotechnic desire to confront humanity with chaos. He began to harness that most Promethean of gifts as a teenager, when he would burst - uninvited - into parties and bars, his face daubed in slogans, spouting obscenities at the outraged onlookers. But, before anybody could attack him, he would rip open his shirt, revealing dozens of sticks of explosives strapped around his waist. Before the stunned crowd, Coleman would ignite the fuse and literally explode. A thin tin tea-tray was all that separated his chest from the detonating explosives, but he always escaped serious injury during these numerous pranks.
Word of Coleman' s combustible performances spread - and he took on the name Professor Momboozo (a combination of his parental figures: Mom and Booze-o). In 1981, he was invited to perform at the New York performance art venue, the Kitchen. It was here that Coleman emerged as the modern geek. Traditionally the worst job at the carny, the geek used to earn money by biting the heads off live animals. During the Kitchen performance, Coleman poured live rats over his head and, as one of the animals bit him, he gnawed the rat' s head off.
Geek
Over the ensuing years, Coleman would incorporate more geeking into his performances, sharpening his teeth in order to become a better mouse-trap. Some of these shows were shot for the film Mondo New York in 1987. Unfortunately, TV personality and animal rights activist Bob Barker saw the film and pressed charges against Coleman for cruelty to animals. Although the artist fought (and won) this case, a second charge, for possession of an ' infernal machine' , was brought following an explosive slaughterhouse of a Momboozo show in Boston, 1989.
Coleman' s ability to enter the abyss of his unconscious and emerge unscathed helped in a parallel acting career. He has portrayed Satan, in David Wojnarowicz' s and Tommy Turner' s Where Evil Dwells and sociopathic killer the Misfit in Rossi' s Black Hearts Bleed Red (both on Cinema of Transgression video, available through the BFI). He has also been the subject for the biographical documentary RIP: Rest In Pieces, directed by Robert Pejo, and more recently has appeared in Asia Argento' s Scarlet Diva.
Odditorium
Coleman' s link with the outcast and carny has also resulted in his personal gallery of human freakery. Coleman' s ' odditorium' includes wax murderer dummies from long-forgotten museums, a lock of Charles Manson' s hair, a two-headed calf and some ' genuine fake' mermaids. It is in this personal collection that Coleman finds solace with his adopted son, Junior, a ' pickled punk' who sits smiling enigmatically in a tank of formaldehyde.
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