His canvases stand as critical testaments of macho expressionism, intuitive faculty, unbridled imagination, and taboo; authoring a sophisticated revisionism through which to consider both the possibilities of contemporary painting and the role of the artist.
The power of Butzer’s work lies in the potency of his skill. His canvases embody creative energy in raw and pure form, and aggressively assert their monumentality through vehement mark-making, noxious hues, and highly corporeal surfaces which expand as ‘apocalyptic’ terrains. Butzer’s paintings confound with their eclectic lexicon of gesture, ranging from ‘outsider’ clumsiness, to articulate tenuity, and outrageously exaggerated brush work. His work exudes an unapologetic arrogance in its confidence and authority.
Resonating with a Kippenberger-ish wit, Butzer’s paintings are equally archetypal and symptomatic of cultural anxiety, proffering an anti-heroism from ‘slacker’ values and collapse of genuine belief. Butzer’s work extols painting as a mercenary pursuit, claiming its own utopian hierarchy amidst the debris of recent history and media saturation. His canvases exist as a proposition of absolutes, resolving as neither abstraction nor figuration, but as a possibility for truth and meaning within the performative engagement with painting itself.