Midwest Region
James Beoddy (1951 – 2015)
AKA Goblinhood, AKA CHIMERA
Art Type or Medium: Drawing; Painting; Performance
Viewable: no
Secular or Religious: Secular
James Beoddy recalled that he began to draw when he was about four or five years old, and despite having attended college for a couple of years, he was primarily a self-taught artist. Beginning in 2000, he taught himself to paint in anaglyphic and ChromaDepth® 3-D. A longtime passionate advocate for freedom of expression, Beoddy’s work was shown in a national symposium on censorship, in Anchorage Alaska, in 1992. He was a longtime “underground cartoonist” primarily with The Columbus Free Press.
As a performance artist, Beoddy was a fixture in Columbus, Ohio as the masked Goblinhood, a “volunteer shaman” then later as half “Goblinhood” half “Chimera” his female alter-ego.
Underground Comix
(hand-published by Beoddy)
Goblinhood Comix & Poems on Calaméo
Chim’s Pookarama Comix on Calaméo
additional Beoddy comix on Calaméo
Anaglyphic Drawings
(approx 22 x 28 inches, ca 2002-12). These are meant to be viewed through anaglyphic 3-D red and blue lens glasses. Notes in the margins specify left or right eye for which lens color.
Chromadepth Drawings
(approx 22 x 28 inches, ca 2002-06). These are meant to be viewed through ChromaDepth® 3-D glasses.
Project Oberon
(approx 22 x 28 inches, ca 2006-14). These are meant to be viewed through anaglyphic 3-D glasses. Beoddy was deeply immersed in 3-D exploration several years before the world went 3-D Avator crazy in 2009, and through both his artworks and performances, he seems to have anticipated the contemporary culture-wide interest in politics of gender fluidity and identity.
Artworks by Chimera, James Beoddy’s Female Alter-ego
(painted with Beoddy’s left-hand by “Chim”) Beoddy in 2011: “Following the literary debut of my new “Chimera” character (see 2011 Intro to GOBLINHOOD, 2012), right-handed Beoddy expanded Chim’s creative potential, giving her the use of his left hand to draw with. Beoddy sometimes strengthens the lines, fills in the dark areas, and anaglyphs the pictures for 3-D. But the drawings are Chim’s.” (Chimera’s drawings are approximately 8.5 x 11 inches)
Late Large Scale Drawings
(approx 3 x 4 feet, 2015)
Final Exhibition, Beoddy Retrospective at the Vanderelli Room in Columbus, Ohio 2015
Funeral, Scattering of Ashes in Goodale Park
near the stage where James Beoddy performed at Confest (Community Festival) in Columbus, Ohio
Dr. Jay Hanes, my former colleague at West Penn University, interviewed Jim Beoddy (ca 1993) for his doctoral dissertation, and one day in the hallway at school he suggested that I seek him out. Thanks also to Suzanne Patzer of the Columbus Free Press for initiating my line of communication with the reclusive, but personally accessible Jim.
Beoddy’s interest in free expression carried over into his facility with multiple mediums: comics & illustration, performance art, writing, painting, and 3-D drawing. His out-of-body alter-egos Goblinhood and Chimera made for an ever-present Greek chorus– hovering over his consciousness and whispering their thoughts about “Beoddy” (and everything else) into Jim’s ear.