A dark visionary master, Neckface taps into the lexicon of our collective cultural fears as a matter of locating what’s so very funny about the human condition. He laughs, we squirm, and somewhere between the shudder and the smile is a bit of frisson that approximates the truth. Daring, not simply for all the bravado but more deeply because this art does not shy from tapping into moments of being and nothingness that are, well, debased to the point of embarrassment, Neckface brings pathos to a poetics that is pure discomfiture. Widely known for his unsolicited and unsanctioned (read: illegal) work on the streets and other public spaces, Neckface’s most provocative violation was not so much that of property but of sensibility, and today, even though largely commissioned and without authorities breathing quite as heavy down his back, he continues to trespass an emotional topography of social taboo, parental concern and religious phobia. A consummate outsider, he is the other amongst us, the shadow that lurks, the bad seed that will seemingly grow anywhere, the unhealthy influence that cannot be silenced, all the more scary because as the sum of our mass denial we can never locate his cause as we instinctively recoil from his effect.

- except from an essay by Carlo McCormick.